-
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/05 February) – The country’s inflation rate slowed down to 4.4% last month from 5.1% in December 2018, a report released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Tuesday showed.
Inflation was lowest in the Cordillera Administrative Region at 3.1% while it remained highest in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao at 6.1%, although this is lower than the 7.5% recorded in December 2018.
The PSA attributed the decrease to the slowdown in the annual increment of the index for heavily-weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages at 5.6%; 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%.
Last year’s inflation peaked at 7.9% in September.
Inflation showed signs of tapering off beginning October 2018 when it remained at 6.7% before going down to 6% in November and 5.
1% in December.
The data also showed that inflation rate in all six regions of Mindanao further eased in January.
Region 9 recorded the biggest drop from 6.6% in December 2018 to 3.6% in January 2019. Region 13 registered the second lowest inflation with 3.7%; Region 10, 4.7%; Region 11, 4.7%; and Region 12, 5.2%. (Antonio L. Colina IV/MindaNews)
