BEIJING — Consumer prices in China are going to stabilize and fall as market supplies improve and multiple government measures pay off, China's Ministry of Commerce said on Feb 27.

Wang Bin, an official with the Ministry of Commerce, told an online news conference that he expected consumer prices to top out as a result of increased supplies of major farm products and implementation of supportive policies such as tax cuts and logistics facilitation.

China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 5.4 percent year-on-year in January, up from 4.5 percent for December. Food prices went up 20.6 percent from a year ago, official data showed.

Wang said the January spike was structural and only took place because it was a special time, as the Spring Festival, in January this year but in February last year, had contributed to the increase due to a low comparison base.

Strong demand around the Spring Festival holiday, higher costs during the novel coronavirus epidemic, and high pork prices have also pushed up CPI level, Wang said.

Pork prices rose 116 percent year-on-year last month, contributing 2.76 percentage points to the CPI increase. The prices have been soaring in recent months, mainly caused by African swine fever and cyclical factors.

Prices of daily necessities in China are now generally stable, according to official survey results. On Feb 26, prices of grain and edible oil in the country's 100 major wholesale farm produce markets both dropped 0.9 percent from the end of January, while prices of pork were down 0.1 percent.