Producer price index (PPI), a major measurement of inflation at the wholesale level, fell 7.8 percent year on year in June, according to the NBS.

The decline compared with a 7.2-percent drop in May from the same period last year. The country's PPI dropped 5.9 percent during the January-June period from a year earlier.

Purchasing prices of raw material, fuel and energy fell 8.7 percent year on year in the first half of this year.

Despite the widening of the fall in both CPI and PPI, China's economy grew 7.1 percent in the first half from a year earlier.

(Xinhua News Agency July 16, 2009)