China's food prices will peak in September or October this year with the consumer price index (CPI) increasing by four percent at most, experts said, according to a Xinhuanet report.

"The food price hike will come to an end as late as September this year, when prices will begin falling," said Chen Zhongtao, a senior analyst with the China Logistics Information Center.

The wave of price hikes is due to rising food prices, mostly the prices of meat, eggs and cooking oil, Chen said, adding that the price of grain is growing slightly.

Chen predicted that the price of cooking oil will see a long-term rise as China has no national soybean or rapeseed reserves and the country's soybeans are mainly imported, but the international prices of soybeans have also been high lately.

Due to the government's macro-control measures, prices of food products have been slipping in recent days.

The Ministry of Commerce's price monitoring system shows that the retail price of lean meat nationwide on June 10 was 20.93 yuan per kilogram, down 2.3 percent from the end of May, according to Zhu Xiaoliang, a deputy-director of the ministry's market operations department.

Chen added there is an excess of most of China's marketable products, so the CPI growth in the third quarter of this year should slow down step-by-step.

"The year-on-year CPI growth rate will see a 4 percent increase, the peak value this year, in October," said Zhang Yongjun, a senior analyst with the State Information Center, a research unit of the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economy planning agency.

Recently, some experts also expressed the same opinion on the price hike. Shen Minggao, an economist with Citigroup, said meat, especially pork, fueled the CPI growth and he estimated that meat prices would reach peak points this summer.

Ha Jiming, chief economist of China International Capital Corporation, said the CPI will continue to grow, but will slow down in the fourth quarter of this year.

The State Information Center said in a report yesterday that China's CPI is expected to rise about 3.3 percent in 2007, moving above the government target of 3 percent.

China's CPI hit a 27-month-high of 3.4 percent in May, driven by an 8.3 percent rise in food prices, from 3.0 percent in April and 3.3 percent in March.