China's consumer prices increased 1.8 percent in July year on year, the slowest pace since February 2010, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Thursday.
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The Consumer Price Index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation, was 0.4 percentage points lower than the figure in June.
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The easing inflation is explained as a result of the base effect. The CPI growth rate hit a 37-month high of 6.5 percent in July last year before gradually retreating as China's economy slowed for eight quarters in a row.
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Food prices, which account for nearly one-third of the weighting in the calculation of China's CPI, edged up 2.4 percent in July from a year ago, down from a growth of 3.8 percent in June.
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Food prices were mainly driven by an eight percent hike of vegetable prices, as rain and flooding affected vegetable production in many places in a traditionally peak season of supply.
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China has already started to boost the economy by lowering interest rates and cutting banks' reserve requirement ratios this year. Analysts noted that more pro-growth measures may be pushed forward in the coming months to counter weak external demand.
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