TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's annual inflation rate fell by half a percentage point to 14.5 percent in June, the central bank said, continuing a downward trend in the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.

Consumer prices rose 1.8 percent in the Iranian month of Khordad, which ended on June 21, from the previous month. But the year-on-year rate fell from 15 percent the previous month, the central bank said on its website, www.cbi.ir.
High inflation was a key issue in campaigning for last month's presidential vote, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won reelection by a landslide.
During his first four-year term, critics accused Ahmadinejad's government of stoking inflation with profligate spending of petrodollars since he came to power in 2005 pledging to share out Iran's oil wealth more fairly.
The Iranian president has blamed high inflation on international energy and food price rises that peaked during 2008 and points to a falling trend since late last year.
The official year-on-year rate has roughly halved since reaching a peak of almost 30 percent in October, but it remains above the level of some 11 percent when Ahmadinejad first won the presidency four years ago.
Coupled with a lack of jobs, double-digit inflation is the loudest complaint among many ordinary Iranians.
Economists have said the declining inflation rate is partly due to a slowing economy as a result of lower crude prices and the global economic downturn.
They have also said monetary tightening introduced by former central bank governor Tahmasb Mazaheri in 2008 had helped to ease inflationary pressures. Mazaheri was replaced last September.
Photo:
Iranian women shop in Laleh shopping center in Tehran, Iran on March 15, 2008. (UPI/ Mohammad Kheirkhah)