China's inflation rate in December eased to a 15-month low to register at 4.1 per cent, hinting of further monetary policy easing to aid the country's slowing economy.

It was China's fifth consecutive month of retreating inflation. The only thing notable was that China's consumer price index only slid 0.1 percentage point lower from November, as against the 1.3 and 0.6 percentage point declines in the earlier two months of October and September.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics released on Thursday showed that for the entirety of 2011 China's overall inflation stood at 5.4 per cent, still well above its full-year target of 4 per cent and even higher than the 3.3 per cent recorded in 2010.

Still, the latest data suggest Premier Wen Jiabao may now proceed to enact and implement changes in policies to support economic expansion amid the fiscal meltdown affecting its major market, the eurozone.

"Inflation is coming down but not as fast as the government would have liked," analyst Alistair Thornton said in The Washington Post. "The authorities are constrained in their ability to aggressively loosen monetary policy to revive growth."

Analysts also added Beijing may possibly slash the reserve requirement ratio of banks in the coming months, which means banks may start increasing the amount of money they can lend.

A key driver of inflation, prices of food prices grew 9.1 per cent in December, compared with 8.8 per cent in November. Analysts attributed this early Lunar New Year, which unusually falls early this year in January.

The 21.3 per cent jump in the price of pork as well as the 6.9 per cent jump in grain prices triggered the rise in Chinese food costs in December.