OREANDA-NEWS.   Anhui's consumer price index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation, rose 1.5 percent year-on-year in June, weakening from May's 2.2 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Thursday.

The province's June CPI growth was lower than the national average of 2.3 percent. Its Jan-June CPI edged up 1.8 percent from the same period a year ago.

On a monthly basis, the cost of living dropped 0.5 percent in June, said the NBS. Such a decrease was largely attributed to the 1.6 percent month-on-month fall in food prices, which account for almost one third of the basket of goods in China’s CPI calculation.

In the food category, the prices of fresh fruits and vegetables dipped 13.7 and 6.1 percent percent month-on-month, respectively. They collectively contributed 0.54 percentage points to the CPI.

On a yearly basis, the province's food prices grew 1.4 percent in June, while its non-food prices moved up 1.5 percent, marking the first time the growth in food prices had been slower than that in non-food prices since June 2012.

The meat and poultry category in general dipped 0.7 percent year-on-year, pushing down the CPI by 0.05 percentage points. The price of pork, a staple of the Chinese diet, fell 5.8 percent, contributing to 0.17 percentage-point CPI decline.

In the non-food category, prices of clothing, healthcare and entertainment rose 1.5, 1.6, 3.0 percent year-on-year, respectively. However, those for tobacco and liquor as a whole, transport and telecommunications declined 2.6, 2.2 and 8.4 percent from a year earlier, respectively.

"CPI growth is in line with economic trends," said Li Hongmei, an economist who works for the Anhui Economic Information Center. She said price levels would continue to be in low territory during the second half of this year amid an economic slowdown, forecasting the full-year CPI rise at 2-3 percent.