HEFEI - Ancient Chinese historians said that to ordinary people, all that matters is food. And among food, to Wang Xueqin in East China's Hefei City, meat comes first.

The retired woman's New Year's wish is that the government will continue to rein in rising meat prices, otherwise, she said, "I can no longer afford to eat meat. It's no joke!"

Vegetable prices are not too expensive, but meat prices have been rising too fast, the 77-year-old woman said.

Pork price has risen to 29 yuan per kilogram from 22 yuan a year ago in Hefei, capital of Anhui Province, while mutton price is now 50 yuan per kilogram, compared with 32 yuan a year ago, according to Wang.

Wang has a monthly pension of 1,500 yuan ($230). The money is only enough for food after she pays the bills of electricity, gas, phone calls and other costs.

According to a survey in 50 cities in the fourth quarter by the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, nearly 69 percent respondents considered consumer prices were unacceptably high. The survey covered 20,000 urban depositors.

The country's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 5.5 percent year-on-year from January to November this year, peaking at 6.5 percent in July, a total well above the government's full-year inflation control target of 4 percent.

The government prioritized price control among its economic agenda in 2011 as it strived to seek balance between cooling an overheated economy and ensuring growth.

According to the central bank's survey, inflation expectation among people is declining, as 36.8 percent of respondents believed that consumer prices would continue to rise in the next quarter, 12.8 percentage points lower than the figure in a similar survey in the previous quarter.

"In the new year, I hope there will be no more rocketing prices of daily necessities, especially those of meat," Wang said.

She is also expecting a pension rise in 2012. "We'll surely have better days if the pension is raised. Only when the rise of wages and pensions outpaces that of consumer prices can we ordinary people have good days."

Shelter is also a major daily concern of Chinese people since ancient times, coming after clothing and feeding and before transport.

The topic, however, may top the concern list today as people have been complaining about the notoriously high housing prices in recent years, which, in some cities, are even more than 10 times higher than the monthly salary of a new college graduate.

The government has imposed a raft of measures aiming to rein in housing prices since April 2010. These measures include higher down payments, home ownership limits, less access to loans and construction of low-income housing.

Sun Yuxue has been dreaming for a home for long. She consulted a real estate agency in Hefei on Sunday with her boyfriend, but the pharmacy saleswoman in Hefei still hesitated as she hoped that the government's macro control policies on the property sector will result in further decline of housing prices this year.

Sun kept an eye on the property market all through last year, and observed that housing prices in Hefei had been dropping, but she would still wait for lower prices this year.

"When the price drops below 6,000 yuan per square meter, I'll no longer hesitate. That's my New Year's wish," she said.