The average wholesale price of pork from September 17 to 23 saw a week-on-week decline of 0.8 percent, said the Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday.

It was the seventh consecutive weekly drop in pork prices, which have almost doubled in the past eight months due to short supply and mounting production costs.

But the ministry said the decline would probably stop as demands urged during the upcoming National Day holiday and feedstuff prices were expected to stay high.

Prices of eggs went up by 0.1 percent and fruit by 2.9 percent. The wholesale price of vegetables dropped by 0.5 percent.

The ministry forecast egg prices would fall slightly as enterprises stopped buying eggs for the holidays, while fruit prices would continue to rise on surging demand.

The price hikes of foodstuffs, which were partly due to short supply, drove up China's consumer price index in the first eight months. The inflation indicator was 6.5 percent in August from the same month last year, the highest rate in a decade.

To offset price rises, the government has given city dwellers who live on minimum living allowances a monthly subsidy of 15 yuan (US$2). The NDRC announced on Friday that these people would get an additional 10 yuan a month.

(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2007)