Food price inflation was 4.9% in June, compared with 3.2% in May, with rising pork prices partly to blame.
While the headline inflation number was above analysts' expectations, it remains below the government's target figure of 3.5%.
Analysts say the latest figure reduces the prospect of interest rate cuts in 2013.
Cutting interest rates risks inflating a property bubble, while tightening may put additional pressure on the economy in the middle of the current global economic uncertainty.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch economists Lu Ting and Zhi Xiaojia expect authorities to keep monetary policy neutral with "neither easing nor tightening".
China expects economic growth this year to be 7.5% -  which would be the slowest rate in 23 years for the country.
The government is due to release data on gross domestic product for the second quarter of the year on 15 July.

The parade by the campaign group, Veterans for Justice UK, is now set to take place in Coleraine, County Londonderry, on Saturday 4 March.
The original plan was to hold the march in Derry on the same date.
However relatives of Bloody Sunday victims objected, saying it was an "insult" to the people of the city.
John Kelly, whose brother was one of 14 Bloody Sunday victims killed by soldiers who opened fire on a civil rights march in Derry in 1972, had described the original plan as "an act of pure provocation".
The Derry parade was called off last week amid reports of counter-demonstrations planned by republicans.
Veterans for Justice UK has now lodged a fresh application with the Parades Commission to march through the centre of Coleraine.
The group said it expects 150 marchers to take part in the parade, which will start and finish at the Royal British Legion.
Last week, march organiser Anto Wickham said the aim of the event was to protect soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan facing "false prosecutions".
Mr Wickham said he was "upset" by suggestions that the Derry march had been planned to raise tensions in the city.
He told Tuesday's Belfast Telegraph: "With help from the Royal British Legion in Coleraine, we are now able to parade and carry on our fight for justice".
In recent months, a number of former soldiers and Conservative MPs have complained that Army veterans were being unfairly targeted by investigations into Troubles-era killings.
In January, hundreds of veterans marched through London to demand an end to the prosecutions.
A London-based law firm representing a number of ex-soldiers also called for an independent inquiry into the prosecution process.
The criticism drew a response from Northern Ireland's Director of Public Prosecutions Barra McGrory QC, who defended his impartiality.
Mr McGrory told the BBC last month that critics who accuse him of treating former soldiers unfairly had insulted him and his office.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) centre is housed in the Broadway Malyan-designed Mann Island on the waterfront
RIBA North has a gallery "at its heart", showing the city's architectural past, present and future.
Mayor Joe Anderson said it would bring "new tools and innovations".
The gallery includes an interactive 3D digital city model which will help "improve planning and engage with communities and industry about developing our cities in a way that we will be proud of in the future," Mr Anderson added.
Among the designs that never came to fruition are Sir Charles Nicholson and Philip Webb's proposals for the city's Anglican Cathedral, a 1959 scheme by Sir Denys Lasdun for the Catholic Cathedral site and Graeme Shankland's "bold vision for a new skyline" from the 1960s.
Visitors will also walk through layers of red mesh cut into the shapes of iconic buildings in "northern powerhouse" cities, including The Sage in Gateshead, Imperial War Museum North, Liverpool Catholic Cathedral and York Minster.
The Liverpool(e) Mover, Shaker, Architecture Risk Taker exhibition, the title of which refers to how the city's name was spelt until the 18th Century, has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
It runs until 16 September.
China's inflation rate rose by more than expected in June, increasing to 2.7% from 2.1% the month before.
[NEXT_CONCEPT]
Organisers of a march for military veterans, which was cancelled in Londonderry due to security fears, have rearranged the event.
[NEXT_CONCEPT]
Designs for Liverpool that were never built are going on show at a newly-opened national architecture centre in the city.