BEIJING — China will act to address the challenges facing the country's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) due to the recent hike in commodity prices, officials said on June 1.

Wang Jiangping, vice-minister of industry and information technology, said at a press conference that the ministry will step up price monitoring and work together with other government departments to deal with the pressure on SMEs brought by the sharp rise in raw material prices.

Due to multiple factors, especially the seepage of global price rises into the Chinese market since the beginning of this year, some commodities have seen an extended price rally, with the prices of some varieties hitting new records.

The sharp rises had an especially big impact on SMEs and individual businesses, which are yet to fully recover from the COVID-19 impact and have limited bargaining power, said Chen Zhijiang, an official with the State Administration for Market Regulation.

The market regulator will tighten supervision to punish market speculation while implementing measures to support SMEs to mitigate the impact of rising costs, said Xiong Maoping, vice head of the administration.