Increase in consumer prices fastest in almost ten years — PSA

Inflation in August shot up to its fastest pace in almost a decade, according to the government’s latest data released this morning.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the prices of widely used goods increased by 6.4%, higher than July’s 5.7% and 2.6% in August 2017.
The latest figure was the fastest since March 2009 when it registered 6.6%.
The August print was also above the 5.5%-6.2% range estimated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) Department of Economic Research as well as the 5.9% projected inflation by the Department of Finance and the median estimate yielded in a BusinessWorld poll of economists.
Year-to-date, headline inflation averaged 4.8%, higher than the BSP’s target range of 2-4% for the year, but just below the 4.9% forecast.
The food alone index for August was 8.2%, higher than last month’s 6.8% and last year’s 3.1%.
“All food groups registered higher annual increments in August 2018 compared with their previous month’s annual rates, except for corn index in which annual gain slowed down to 12.6% during the month,” the PSA noted in a statement.
Core inflation, which excludes food and energy items, was recorded at 4.8%, higher than last month’s 4.5% and August 2017’s 2.2%. — Vincent Mariel P. Galang