The slowdown in inflationary trend should continue with the unhampered implementation of the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) programs in mitigating food supply concerns, the Department of Finance (DOF) said over the weekend.
In its latest economic bulletin, the DOF pointed out that in the final month of 2021, inflation continued its downward trend, decelerating further to 3.65 percent from 4.24 percent in the previous month.
The December headline inflation is the lowest for the year.
“The DA needs to streamline further its importation procedures, particularly on labeling and requirements that reduced MAV (minimum access volume) Plus utilization to 65 percent,” the DOF said.
“The transportation and distribution of food items must proceed unhampered,” it added.
The DOF said the decline in the inflation rate could be traced to both food and non-food groups.
Food inflation fell to 3.19 percent while non-food inflation eased to 3.65 percent after peaking during the year to 4.1 percent in November.
In an earlier economic bulletin, the DOF said the Philippines would “definitely” need to continue importing pork products to meet demand and immediately compensate for the shortfall in domestic supply.
According to the DOF, “it will take some time to recover decimated hog populations.”
“To stem the continuing pork price spiral, interventions include: extending the validity of executive order 133 until December 2022 as proposed by NEDA (National Economic and Development Authority); reversing the low utilization of MAV Plus (only at 46.4 percent as of end-2021 according to NEDA); and ensuring the regular release of pork stocks in cold storages and the continuous replenishment of unloaded stocks from either local supply or imports,” the DOF said.4 (Malaya Business Insights News)
