HEADLINE inflation further decelerated to 6.6 percent in April from 7.6 percent in March, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said yesterday.
The inflation rate settled within the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ 6.3 to 7.1 percent forecast range for the period.
However, it is higher than the inflation rate in April last year, which was at 4.9 percent.
Meanwhile, core inflation which excludes volatile oil and food items, likewise went down to 7.9 percent from March’s 8.0 percent.
PSA Undersecretary and National Statistician Dennis Mapa said year-to-date, headline inflation settled at 7.9 percent.
Mapa said the downtrend could be attributed to the slower price increases in prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages at 7.9 percent, from 9.3 percent the previous month.
This was mainly due to the slowdown in the inflation of vegetables, fish and other seafood, and meat.
Mapa said the price increase of vegetables, tubers and others was at 10 percent from 20 percent in March.
Inflation of fish and other seafood likewise slowed to 7 percent from 9.9 percent, while meat inflation was at 4.2 percent from 4.6 percent the previous month.
Mapa said however that rice inflation recorded an uptick to 2.9 percent from 2.6 percent a month earlier.
Lower transport inflation which hit 2.6 percent from 5.3 percent, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels with an inflation of 6.5 percent from 7.6 percent, also contributed to the downtrend in headline inflation.
The inflation rate in National Capital Region (NCR) meanwhile, also decelerated to 7.1 percent in April from 7.8 percent in March.
Inflation in areas outside NCR also cooled down to 6.5 percent from 7.5 percent a month ago.
Mapa said inflation rate for the country’s bottom 30 percent households also slowed to 7.4 percent from the previous month’s 8.8 percent.
Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno added the lower inflation indicates “that we are on track to managing inflation to within target sometime in the fourth quarter, if not sooner, and near the midpoint of the target range of 2.0 to 4.0 percent by next year.”
“The consistent decline in inflation rate over the past three months clearly demonstrates that the whole-of-government approach to tackling inflationary pressures is bearing fruit,” said Diokno. (PNA)/PN
