China June inflation eases to 2.2 percent

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BEIJING, July 8 (UPI) -- China's June inflation grew 2.2 percent year-on-year, the slowest rate since January 2010, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday.

The slowdown in the consumer price index, China's main gauge of inflation, should cheer the government which has been taking various steps to spur growth with more liquidity.

The June CPI numbers eased from May's 3 percent and April's 3.4 percent, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

The bureau said in the first six months of 2012, the CPI climbed 3.3 percent compared with the same period of last year.

Slowing of food prices, especially those of pork, was credited for the June improvement. Food prices, which account for nearly a third in calculating China's CPI, increased 3.8 percent in June, down from 6.4 percent in May.

Last week, the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, lowered the benchmark deposit rates by 0.25 percentage points and cut lending rates by 0.30 percentage points, the second such step in a month to lift the economy with more liquidity.

China is facing lackluster external demand and the government's efforts to cool inflation have slowed GDP growth. In the first quarter, GDP growth fell to a nearly three-year low of 8.1 percent.