China's producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, dropped 1.7% year on year in July, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday. 
The NBS said in an online statement that the PPI decline narrowed from a 2.6% decrease in June thanks to stronger industrial product prices for nonferrous metal smelting and rolling, ferrous metal ore mining, and ferrous metal melting and rolling, according to China's (Xinhua) News Agency. 
However, the July reading continued a 52-month decline streak as China's economic slowdown and industrial overcapacity dampened prices. 
On a month-on-month basis, July's PPI edged up 0.2%.