China inflation to stay "modest": government researcher

Labourers work at a construction site in Beijing May 4, 2011.

BEIJING, Jun (Reuters) - China will have to live with "modest" inflation of 3-5 percent for a long time due to rising costs at home and higher commodity prices abroad, an official with China's economic planning agency said on Wednesday.

Xu Lianzhong, a director at the price monitoring center of the National Development and Reform Commission, wrote in an opinion piece on the official China Securities Journal that China's monetary policy tightening couldn't address food-driven inflation.

"As grains, vegetables and pork prices are rising because of supply problems, we can't control price rises by curbing overall money supply," Xu wrote.

The People's Bank of China has raised interest rates twice in 2011, and many analysts believe it may raise them further soon to manage inflation.

According to a Reuters poll of 22 economists, China's consumer price index (CPI) in May may have accelerated to 5.4 percent from 5.3 percent in April.

The National Bureau of Statistics is scheduled to publish monthly economic indicators, including the consumer price index, for May on June 14.

(Reporting by Zhou Xin and Ken Wills; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)