Inflation likely peaked over 3 percent to reach an over two-year high in February as minimum fares in public utility vehicles, electricity rates and oil prices rose while the peso weakened, economists said.
Ateneo de Manila University economic professor Alvin P. Ang said their inflation forecast for February is 3.2 percent “taking into consideration the increase in fares and the base effect.”
The minimum jeepney fare rose to P8 last month from P7 previously, alongside the increase in the taxi flag-down rate to P40 from P30, as drivers sought to recover costs from increasing fuel prices.
DBS Bank Ltd. economist Gundy Cahyadi’s forecast is at 3 percent, while ANZ Research economist for South and Southeast Asia Eugenia F. Victorino’s projection is at a higher 3.2 percent. If the economists are correct, inflation would already be on the uptrend for six straight months.
“Transport prices likely continued to contribute positively to the gains in headline prices in line with the regional trend. Meanwhile, we expect utility prices to have increased on the back of higher electricity generation charges over the month,” Victorino explained.
For Trinh Nguyen, economist at French financial firm Natixis, “higher oil prices and strong demand will continue to push headline inflation upward” to 3.3 percent.
Metrobank research analyst Pauline May Ann E. Revillas projected 3.3 percent “amid a general increase in the prices of food items and petroleum products.”
Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit, projected headline inflation to have “spiked sharply higher” to 3.4 percent last February.
Land Bank of the Philippines market economist Guian Angelo S. Dumalagan expects consumer prices to have increased by 3.4 percent in the same month, “driven primarily by higher oil prices and the peso’s depreciation.”
The peso slid to the 50:$1 level—an over 10-year low—also last month.
Monthly inflation had settled below the 3-percent level for 26 straight months. In January, inflation hit 2.7 percent.
The last two years saw below-target annual inflation rates: a two-decade low of 1.4 percent in 2015, and 1.8 percent in 2016.