The decline came largely as the lingering technical effect of last July's hike in the Goods and Services Tax wore off. The 2 percentage rise in the GST rate has been adding significantly to year-on-year inflation figures in the past 12 months, despite the rise being a one-off event.

Still, the latest update from the Department of Statistics (DOS) on Monday showed that against June, prices last month were actually 1.2 per cent higher, reversing a 0.3 per cent decline in June over May.

Food inflation clocked in at 8.5 per cent, resulting from dearer cooked food, rice, poultry, vegetables, cooking oils and milk.