(Eagle News) – The country’s inflation in the first month of the year continued to slow down at 4.4 percent, much lower than last December’s 5.1 percent, according to the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Although this was relatively lower compared to the last half of the year, the inflation in January this year was still higher than January 2018’s 3.4 percent.
The PSA said that this was “primarily due to the slowdown in the annual increment of the index for the heavily-weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages at 5.6 percent, from 6.7 percent in December 2018.”
Undersecretary Lisa Grace Bersales of the National Statistician and Civil Registrar General said that there were “lower annual increases noted” in the following commodity groups: alcoholic beverages and tobacco (16.1%); clothing and footwear (2.5%); housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels (4.0%); health (4.3%); and transport (2.5%).
“All the food groups registered slower annual increases during the month, compared with their annual rates in the previous month,” she said in the latest PSA report on inflation.
Because of this, “the annual inflation rate for food index at the national level decelerated further to 5.1 percent in January 2019.”
But the annual rate of furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house index went up at a faster pace of 3.9 percent. “Excluding selected food and energy items, core inflation eased further to 4.4 percent in January 2019. In the previous month, core inflation was recorded at 4.7 percent and in January 2018, 2.6 percent,” the PSA said.
-Lower inflation in Metro Manila-
Even inflation in Metro Manila or the National Capital Region (NCR) “continued to slowdown as it registered an annual rate of 4.6 percent in January 2019.”
This was much lower than the inflation in Metro Manila prices last December 18 at 4.8 percent, and in January last year at 4.7 percent.
Outside Metro Manila, inflation was even lower at 4.4 percent last month. Last December, the inflation in the provinces was recorded at 5.3 percent.
“Relative to their annual increments in the previous month, all the regions in AONCR (Areas Outside NCR) had slower annual increases in January 2019. The lowest inflation among the regions in AONCR was still observed in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) at 3.1 percent, while the highest annual mark-up remained in Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) at 6.1 percent,” the latest PSA report prepared by Undersecretary Bersales said.
