BEIJING - China's inflation is controllable and its consumer price growth is expected to drop in the second half of the year, a domestic economist said Saturday.

With the month-on-month increase of consumer prices slowed down in recent months, the country's price rises is likely to peak in June, said Fan Jianping, head of the economic forecast department at the State Information Center.

Fan forecast growth in China's food prices, which accounts for nearly one third in the basket of goods used to calculate inflation rate, will ease from October after increasing output stabilizes pork price hike.

An expected bumper grain harvest this year will also help contain price rises, he said.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the country is set to reap a bigger summer grain harvest this year. The summer grain output accounts for about 25 percent of the country's annual grain production.

China has made capping price rises the priority of this year's macroeconomic regulation and announced an array of targeted policies.

However, its consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, rose by 5.5 percent year-on-year in May, well above the government's 2011 inflation target of 4 percent.

Food prices surged 11.7 percent in May from a year earlier while pork prices rose 40.4 percent year-on-year last month.