October inflation steady at 2.6%—BSP

By Riza Lozada

The inflation rate in October 2016 remained at 2.6 percent, the same pace as in September, and is within the outlook of of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipina (BSP) in the near term.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) traced this to faster rate in the movements of prices on food and non-alco­holic beverages and clothing.

The latest domestic in­flation rate is way higher than year-ago’s 0.4 percent, which along with the September 2015 level, is the lowest rate last year.

The third quarter inflation rates for the NCR and AON­CR also exhibited increases of 1.6 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively, compared with the third quarter 2015 rates of -1.8 percent and 0.5 percent, respec­tively.

“Inflation for the bottom 30 percent income households at the national level picked up 1.4 percent in the third quar­ter of 2016. Last quarter, it was registered at 1.2 percent and in the same quarter in 2015, 0.5 percent.

The uptrend was primarily due to higher annual increase in the heavily-weighted food, bev­erage and tobacco (FBT) index.

Moreover, faster annual rates were also recorded in the indices of housing and repairs (H&R), services and miscella­neous,” the PSA reported.

Inflation in the NCR went up 1.6 percent in the third quarter. Higher annual incre­ments were posted in the indi­ces of FBT, clothing and miscel­laneous commodities, the PSA reported.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pil­ipinas (BSP) said the year-to-date average inflation rate was still below the government’s inflation target range of two to four percent for the whole year.

Likewise, core inflation, which excludes certain volatile food and energy items to mea­sure underlying price pressures, also remained unchanged at 2.3 percent in October.

Meanwhile, month-on-month seasonally-adjusted headline inflation rose to 0.3 percent in October from 0.2 percent in September,” the BSP report said.

Inflation pressures in Oc­tober can be attributed to high­er price increases of selected food items as weather-related production disruptions post-ty­phoons “Karen” and “Lawin” pushed up inflation of food products such as, vegetables and fruits. This was slightly off­set by the slower price increas­es of meat and fish during the month. At the same time, in­flation readings for most non-food subcomponents were also unchanged from the previous month’s level.

BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. noted that the latest inflation figures remain consis­tent with the BSP’s assessment that inflation will gradually move towards the target range over the policy horizon.

Looking ahead, the BSP will continue to pay close at­tention to evolving price and output developments to ensure that the monetary policy stance remains consistent with price and financial stability, a BSP re­port said.