GUIMARAS – This province’s annual inflation rate eased to 6.4 percent in March 2023 from nine percent in February due to the slow-moving price movements of Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and other Fuels at 1.1 percent, based on the generated data of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the Retail Price Survey (RPS) of Commodities conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
“Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels are major contributors to the sluggish inflation of the province with a 1.1 percent rate of price change from 6.5 percent in February 2023 contributing 35.5 percent to the inflation trend,” said Provincial Statistics Officer Nelida B. Losare.
“The 10.2 percent in food and non-alcoholic beverages; and -5.0 percent in transport, sharing 27.0 percent and 25.1 percent, respectively, are among the top three heavily-weighted items that pulled down inflation,” Losare added.
The top three contributors to the 1.1 percent inflation of the housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels are electricity from all sources (coal, solar, hydro, etc.) (-9.5%); liquefied hydrocarbons (butane, propane, etc.) delivered in storage containers (1.1%); and kerosene (including kerosene-type jet fuel) (-5.9%).
“The slowing annual price growth of fresh or chilled onions and shallots (88.9%), rice (2.4%), and Freshwater fish, live, fresh, chilled, or frozen (15.1%), was the cause of the 10.2 percent dropped in Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages,” Losare explained.
“Also, the -5.0 percent price fall in Transport was due to Gasoline (-8.9%); and Diesel (-3.4%),” Losare added.
Losare also expounded that two commodities showed higher inflation rates in March 2023 than the previous month.
“Health went up to 0.6 percent from -0.3 percent; and Information and Communication got up to 0.7 percent from 0.3 percent,” Losare said.
In addition, three commodities: Education Services (-0.3%), Financial Services (0.0%), and Personal Care, and Miscellaneous Goods and Services (9.5%) maintained their inflation rates from the previous month.
The inflation rate in March 2023 implied that the average price changes of consumer goods and services moved slower to 6.4 percent from 9.0 percent in February 2023.
“A CPI of 124.1 indicates that a typical Guimarasnon household will require 1,241 pesos in March 2023 to purchase a basket of items worth 1000 pesos in 2018. The CPI is utilized to determine inflation rate for a specific period,” Losare clarified./PN
