Food prices, which are likely to hurt low earners the hardest with foodstuffs accounting for more than one-third of the monthly spending of the average Chinese consumer, were up 14.8 percent in July.
The July rate was up 0.5 percent month-on-month, while CPI in June had risen 6.4 percent from the same month of 2010. In May, it rose 5.5 percent year on year.
China's producer price index (PPI) for July, a measure of inflation at the wholesale level, was up 7.5 percent year-on-year, the NBS said, from 7.1 percent in June.