China's CPI up 6.2% in August

BEIJING, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's inflation eased in August from a 37-month high as the country's economy cooled and global uncertainties lingered.

The consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, slowed to 6.2 percent in August, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Friday.

The NBS said food prices rose 13.4 percent in August. The CPI surged to 6.5 percent in July, driven mostly by food prices which had jumped 14.8 percent from a year earlier. The figure was far above the Chinese government's full-year target of 4 percent for 2011.

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.

"The Chinese economy is slowing down due to a slew of tightening policies, and debt woes in Europe and the U.S. add to uncertainties in the global economy, so the government will observe for a while before introducing more macro measures," said Ba Shusong, a researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council, or China's Cabinet.

On a month-on-month basis, the CPI increased 0.3 percent from July.

The Producer Price Index, which is used to calculate inflation at the wholesale level, jumped 7.3 percent year-on-year in August.