BEIJING - A senior member of an influential government think-tank said on Friday that China's inflation could rise to near 6 percent during the first quarter of next year, but Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said the nation will still be able to control it.

Liu Shijin, deputy director of the high-profile Development Research Center under the State Council, said at the Caijing Annual Conference in Beijing that the index will not exceed 6 percent and also said the peak is likely to be hit during the first quarter of 2011.

"After that, it will drop gradually," Liu Shijin predicted.