Merrill Lynch economists, like many of their peers, maintain a 5 percent inflation forecast for November.

Official November figures are due to be released by the statistics bureau December 13.

Two surveys monitoring the purchasing managers' index (PMI) released Wednesday served to further fuel market estimations about soon-to-be-released November consumer price index (CPI) figures.

The official PMI reading, co-compiled by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, rose higher-than-expected to 55.2 in November from 54.7 in October.

HSBC's China manufacturing PMI also came in at 55.3 in November from 54.8 in October. A reading above 50 suggests the manufacturing sector is expanding.

The official input prices component, a leading indicator for the producer price index (PPI), jumped to 73.5 in November from 69.9 in October, seeing a sharp rise for a fourth consecutive month.

"Though current CPI inflation is mainly driven by food prices, rising PPI could put pressure on CPI," economists led by Lu Ting from Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a note Wednesday.

"Considerable price pressures were also indicated by the November survey, with both output and input prices rising at substantial and accelerated rates," HSBC said in a report.

China has seen mounting inflation pressure in recent months, with the CPI growing to 4.4 percent in October - the highest level this year —rattling government nerves, who then began to put the brakes on loose monetary policies.

Late last month, the State Council released price control measures to curb growing inflation.

Those efforts bore fruit as vegetable prices declined in the second half of November - after surging earlier in the month - due to a combination of good weather and increased supplies in the market, Merrill Lynch economists said in the note.