S. Korea inflation at 1.6 per cent in July

South Korea's inflation rate came in at 1.6 per cent in July, as stable food costs kept price rises well below the government's target range, government data showed Friday. The increase in the consumer price index was slightly down on the 1.7 per cent rate posted in both May and June. Prices of vegetables fell 15.2 per cent from a year earlier, while fruits were down 6.6 per cent and livestock 2.2 per cent, Statistics Korea said. ‘Consumer price growth slowed as the prices of some vegetables and livestock stabilised, bucking the usual trend of spiking in mid-summer,’ Kim Bo-Kyung, the head of the agency's prices statistics division, told journalists. The central Bank of Korea has set a band of 2.5-3.5 per cent as its inflation target for this year, according to AFP.