BEIJING -- China's economy is heading for a soft landing, said Chinese economist Fan Gang.

Fan said inflation would ease in the second half of the year as the effect of interest rate rises usually can be seen in about six to nine months, the China Business Journal, a newspaper run by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, reported Saturday.

To soak up liquidity, China's central bank has raised the benchmark interest rate three times this year and hiked the reserve requirement ratio for banks six times.

These tightening moves have already taken effect as the country's economic growth rate was now slowing gradually, said Fan.

China's gross domestic product rose 9.5 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2011, tapering off slightly from the 9.7-percent growth posted in the first quarter and 9.8 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, the National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday.

Fan also noted it's very difficult to control by domestic policies imported inflation caused by developed economies' quantitative easing.