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A bumper crop harvest during the first quarter could tame inflation, which has been setting near 14-year highs in the last few months.

"We are hoping that we see a plateau already of that inflation. Next month we will see the new data ? the inflation but it’s our hope that January, February, March ? that’s a good harvest season for our farmers, and we did not have any major typhoons during the last few months," said NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan in a Palace press conference on Tuesday.

He said natural calamities and import issues worsened January inflation to 8.7 percent.

"That inflation, we know it came from forces, which happened like for example, typhoons that destroyed our crops," Balisacan said in Filipino.

"There was also the lack of (food) supply, but we were not able to immediately import, " he added.

NEDA reiterated the government is trying to minimize the impact of high inflation by boosting productivity of farmers and provide aid to vulnerable groups.

Balisacan said they expect inflation to finally come down by mid-year. DMS