China's consumer price index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation, rose 4.6 percent in September over the same period last year, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.

The figure, compared with 7.1 percent in June, 6.3 percent in July, 4.9 percent in August and a nearly 12-year-high of 8.7 percent in February, was broadly in line with most forecasts.

In the first nine months of this year, the inflation indicator rose 7.0 percent from the same period last year: 6.7 percent for urban areas and 7.7 percent for the countryside. The growth rate was 0.9 percentage points lower than that in the first half.

Food prices, which account for more than a third of the CPI calculation, rose 17.3 percent during the January to September period.

Zhuang Jian, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) economist said: "The figure indicated the government's measures to tame inflationary were effective, and the country's inflation pressure has been greatly eased."

(Xinhua News Agency October 20, 2008)