Philippine consumer prices in May grew 9.6 percent over the same period last year, hitting a new high since January 1999, the government announced Thursday.
The spike of CPI (consumer price index), the barometer of inflation, was primarily triggered by the continuing higher annual price increases in the heavily-weighted food, beverages and tobacco index, the National Statistics Office said in a statement.
Inflation a year ago was 2.4 percent and it has reached 8.3 percent in April, due to the surge of food prices, most noticeable the price of rice, the staple food for 90 million Filipinos.
However, the statistics office said the rest of the commodity groups, except for services items, also posted higher inflation rates during the month.
Excluding selected food and energy items, core inflation advanced to 6.2 percent in May from 5.9 percent in April, it said.
Source: Xinhua
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