Philippine inflation soared to new nine-year high of 6.4 percent in August, surpassing the Department of Finance's 5.9 percent forecast, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Wednesday.

In the previous month, inflation was posted at 5.7 percent and in August 2017, 2.6 percent.

Alcoholic beverages rose the highest in the Consumer Price Index, with 21.8 percent from July followed by food and non-alcoholic beverages with 8.5 percent.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said the likelihood of revising the growth forecast of seven percent is very high, ANC reported.

The annual rate of the food alone index further climbed by 8.2 percent in August . Annual growth in the previous month was observed at 6.8 percent and in August 2017, 3.1 percent, the PSA said.

All the food groups registered higher annual increments in August compared with their previous month’s annual rates, except for the corn index in which annual gain slowed down to 12.6 percent during the month. DMS