The Philippines' inflation has slowed down for the fourth consecutive month in May at 6.1 percent, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Tuesday.
During a virtual press cofnerence, National Statistician and PSA chief Claire Dennis Mapa said the inflation rate in the country went down from the 6.6 percent reported in April, bringing the year-to-date rate to 7.5 percent.
Mapa said the result can be attributed to the annual decline in the prices of food and transportation.
In a statement, the PSA said the transport index saw a -0.5 percent inflation rate, down from 2.6 percent month-on-month and a 55.3 percent contributed in the overall decline in May.
Mapa also cited the decline in gasoline (-18.5 percent) and diesel (-27.6 percent) prices as well the fall in other passenger transport by road cost (13.4 percent) for the Transport index’s drop.
The second top contributor to the slowdown in overall inflation was Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages with 7.4 percent rate from 7.9 percent and a 37.3 percent share in the overall downtrend.
Mapa said the slower inflation print in the Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages was due to the easing of prices of fish and other seafoods (5 percent from 7 percent); meat and other parts of slaugthered land animals (3.2 percent from 4.2 percent); and milk, other dairy products, and eggs (12.1 percent from 13 percent).
The third commodity group that contributed to the overall decline was Restaurants and Accommodation Services with 8.3 percent inflation rate from 8.6 percent and a 5.7 percent share to the downtrend.
This was due to the slower increase in the prices of restaurants, café and the like with an inflation print of 8.3% from 8.6% month-on-month., the PSA chief noted.
“We are confident that we can achieve the government’s inflation target this year as we work closely with concerned government agencies in monitoring the primary drivers of inflation,” National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said in a statement.
Economists had forecast the consumer price index would rise by 6.2 percent in May from a year earlier, based on the median estimate in a Reuters poll, while the central bank had a 5.8 percent to 6.6 percent projection.
