The increase in commodity prices hit a 16-month low in July on the back of cheaper housing, water and electricity as well as food and transport, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
On Friday, PSA said inflation was at 4.7 percent in July. This is the slowest since March 2022 when inflation averaged 4 percent.
The inflation rate in July was within the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) projection of 4.1 to 4.9 percent for July. With this, the average inflation rate for the January to July period averaged 6.8 percent. This is still above the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) inflation target of 2.5 to 4.5 percent.
Core inflation, which excludes selected food and energy items, decelerated to 6.7 percent in July 2023 from 7.4 percent in June 2023. This brings the average core inflation from January to July 2023 to 7.6 percent. In July 2022, core inflation was observed at 3.9 percent.
Food inflation, PSA said, accounted for 45.8 percent or 2.2 percentage points of the overall inflation in July 2023.
The food groups with the highest contribution to food inflation during the month were Cereals and cereal products, which includes rice, corn, flour, bread and other bakery products, with a 32.4 percent share or 2 percentage points.
The data also showed the inflation for vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses, with 27.1 percent share or 1.7 percentage points and milk, other dairy products and eggs, with 12.5 percent share or 0.8 percentage point.
Image credits: Michael O. Ligalig | Dreamstime.com
Commodity prices hit 16-month low in July—PSA
Source: News Paper Radio
0 Comments