By Brian Jules Campued
The headline inflation in the country remained on a downtrend as it further dipped to 3.9% in December 2023, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Friday.
In a press briefing, National Statistician and PSA Usec. Claire Dennis Mapa reported that the inflation rate slowed down from the 4.1% in November.
Data from the PSA also showed that the inflation continuously went down since October which settled at 4.9%.
“This is the slowest since February of 2022 where the headline inflation was recorded at 3.0%,” Mapa noted.
This also resulted in the average inflation rate for 2023 to 6%.
Meanwhile, this December inflation was within the 3.6% to 4,4% projection of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
Mapa reported that the main sources of deceleration were the lower year-on-year growth of housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (from 2.5% in November to 1.5% in December) as well as food and non-alcoholic beverages (from 5.7% to 5.4%).
“Lower annual increments” were also recorded among the categories of clothing and footwear, furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance, health, information and communication, recreation, sport and culture, and personal care and miscellaneous goods and services.
Core inflation, which excludes certain food and energy items also eased to 4.4% in December from 4.7% in November. While average core inflation was higher at 6.6% for the whole year.
Food inflation also eased to 5.5% in December 2023 from 5.8% in the previous month, PSA data showed.
However, rice inflation rose to 19.6% from 15.8% in November. The last highest recorded rice inflation was in March 2009 when it hit 22.9%.
Mapa also said the inflation rate in the National Capital Region also fell to 3.5% in December while areas outside Metro Manila also recorded lower inflation at 4%.
BARMM recorded the highest inflation among all regions at 6.2%, while Region 2 or the Cagayan Valley had the lowest at 1.6%. – avds
