The Philippine inflation rate is already in a “downward trend”, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan declared on Friday, June 2.

“Yeah, I think that casually, we observed the moments of crisis recently. I do believe that we are on the downtrend,” he told reporters in a press briefing held at Malacañang.

“We are continuing with the downtrend,” Balisacan added.

According to the NEDA chief, the exact numbers of the inflation rate for the month of May will be released next week.

The country’s inflation rate slowed down further to 6.6 percent in April from 7.6 percent in March this year, based on the latest report from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

Food and non-alcoholic beverages mainly contributed to the decline of inflation in April with 7.9 percent, followed by transport with 2.6 percent, and housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels with 6.5 percent.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has projected that inflation in May will fall within the range of 5.8 percent to 6.6 percent.