South Korea's consumer prices grew at the slowest pace in nine months in November, renewing worries the country might be entering a phase of deflation, a government report showed Tuesday.

The country's consumer price index rose 1 percent last month from a year earlier, slowing from October's 1.2 percent gain, according to the report by Statistics Korea. This marked the lowest rise since March.

From a month earlier, the price index also inched down 0.2 percent, the third straight month that it has declined on-month.

The core inflation, which excludes volatile oil and food prices, rose 1.6 percent on-year, the slowest increase since August 2013 when it gained 1.5 percent, the report showed.

"The slowing price hikes are attributable in large part to falling international crude oil costs, which puts downward pressure on many product prices," said Kim Bo-kyung, head of the agency's prices statistics division. 

The report showed that oil prices dropped 7.7 percent on-year in November and also fell 2.7 percent from a month earlier.

Affected by the falling energy costs, factory product prices inched down 0.1 percent in November from a year earlier.

Falling farming costs have also kept overall consumer prices in check. Prices of agricultural, livestock and fisheries products dropped 0.1 percent on-year. In particular, fresh food prices declined 5.2 percent. 

The "livelihood price" index, which measures the cost of key daily necessities, remained subdued, rising 0.7 percent, staying below 1 percent for the fourth straight month, the report showed. 

The latest price data intensified concerns that the country might be facing a phase of deflation amid relatively weak economic growth. Experts say that a prolonged period of low growth and a further fall in international crude oil prices could cause deflation. 

Some still expect that an imminent price hike in cigarettes will ease the concerns by helping bring the price growth rate back to 2 percent in the months to come. But they caution that it will not be enough to turn around the overall low price trend at a time when consumption and other demand remain sluggish.

The ruling and opposition parties recently agreed to raise the price of cigarettes by 2,000 won (US$1.8) per pack from January.

The government expects that the price hike will add 0.62 percentage point to consumer prices. 

"Even if the government estimate turns out to be accurate, it has nothing to do with dealing with the underlying problem of low inflation, which is sluggish demand," said Cho Dong-chul, a senior economist at the state-run think tank Korea Development Institute. (Yonhap)