The consumer price index (CPI) fell to a 10-month low of 6.3 percent in July, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday.

The third consecutive monthly drop of the CPI, the barometer of inflation, will give the government more leeway to maintain steady growth and adjust energy prices, analysts said.

They attributed the fall to moderating food price inflation, thanks to a good grain harvest in summer and the government's steps to boost agricultural production.

Food prices, which account for one-third of the CPI basket, rose 14.4 percent in July, compared with 17.3 percent in June. Among the food products whose prices rose last month were cooking oil (30.8 percent), fish (18.3 percent) and meat (16 percent).

Non-food products' inflation, however, rose in July to 2.1 percent year-on-year against 1.9 percent in June. That was mainly because of the government's move to raise gasoline and diesel prices and electricity charges in late June and July.

The fall in CPI "should give the government greater room to ease its price control measures and focus more on growth than inflation", Lehman Brothers' economist Sun Mingchun said.

The government had said last month that it would focus on curbing inflation while trying to maintain a stable and fast economic growth.

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