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Consumers select vegetables at a market in Nanjing, capital city of east China's Jiangsu Province, Oct. 14, 2011. China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, eased slightly to 6.1 percent year-on-year in September from 6.2 percent in August, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. (Xinhua/Wang Xin)
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BEIJING, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's inflation continued to ease from a 37-month high for a second month in September, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.
The country's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, climbed 6.1 percent year on year in September from 6.2 percent in August, the NBS said in a statement on its website. On a monthly basis, consumer prices rose 0.5 percent last month.
In the first nine months of this year, China's CPI climbed 5.7 percent from the same period last year, up from 5.4 percent year on year in the first half, said the NBS.
Food prices, which account for nearly one-third of the basket of goods in the nation's CPI calculation, were up 13.4 percent in September from the previous year and 1.1 percent month on month, according to the NBS.
China's CPI hit a 37-month high of 6.5 percent in July, extending far beyond the Chinese government's full-year target of 4 percent for 2011.
The September CPI is still high, but stubborn domestic inflation is expected to continue to ease in coming months as a slowdown in the global economy weighs down demand, said economists.
"Price growth will continue to ease in October, but it will not be a significant decline," said Liu Yuanchun, deputy head of the School of Economics of the Renmin University of China.
Liu attributed the weakening inflation to the good autumn grain harvest, a significant drop in international commodity prices, a further slowdown in the global economy and a future strain in liquidity.
For the first time in 16 months, the Chinese government reduced retail prices for gasoline and diesel by 300 yuan (about 47 U.S. dollars) per tonne starting Monday, a move expected to ease domestic inflation.
Zhang Liqun, a researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council, or China's Cabinet, also estimated that the good autumn harvest will bring more supplies to ease food prices.
Zhang estimated that for the whole year, China's consumer price will grow by 5 percent from last year, one percentage point higher than the government's target.
"The government has underestimated this year's new price factors, especially the hike in domestic pork prices and international commodities," he said.
Despite the downward trend, many economists believe that China's macro-economic policy will not ease, but instead stabilize in the current conditions.
Liu said he expected more "slight adjustments" in China's monetary and fiscal policies, including more support to small- and medium-sized enterprises and structural tax reductions.
To curb soaring inflation, the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, has raised the benchmark interest rate three times this year and increased the reserve requirement ratio six times.
China's Producer Price Index (PPI), a major measure of inflation at the wholesale level, rose 6.5 percent year on year in September, down from 7.3 percent in August.
China's gross domestic product rose by 9.5 percent year on year in the second quarter of 2011, tapering off slightly from the 9.7-percent growth posted in the first quarter and 9.8 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
Economic growth for the third quarter is scheduled to be released by the NBS on Tuesday.
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