Customers check the price of vegetables at a market in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province on Jan 23, 2020. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

Wuhan's material reserves and market supply are sufficient and won't be much affected by the city's lockdown on public transport, Wang Xiaodong, governor of Hubei province, said in a statement to assure residents.

Freight channels to Wuhan are not closed and agricultural products from Southwest China's Yunnan, South China's Hainan and other provinces are continuously transported to Wuhan, so "the market supply is guaranteed," he said.

Wuhan's lockdown came into effect on Thursday morning in a bid to control the spread of the new coronavirus pneumonia disease.

Wuhan is a large city with more than 10 million people and a major transportation hub in the country. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus coincides with the Chinese New Year holiday marked by a large number of travelers, bringing great risk to spreading the virus, he said.

Wang said the biggest risk now is the migration of people, and therefore the most important measure is to control the flow of crowds. "If this problem was not solved, it would cause greater harm to the lives and health of people," he added.

Wuhan now has in stock 5 million kilograms of rice, 4,000 tons of cooking oil and more than 10,000 tons of pork and beef.

Wang said the local market supervision administration also will increase its efforts to ensure food supply and stabilize market prices.

He said the closure is "a very difficult decision" to make.

"What we are most worried about is the inconvenience to people's daily life. Our hope is to exchange short-term difficulties for long-term peace and safety as soon as possible," he said.