Inflation quickens to 3.3 percent in November

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s headline inflation jumped to 3.3 percent in November, higher than the previous 2.5 percent in October, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Friday.

The PSA said in its report that this is the highest inflation registered since April 2019. Inflation in November 2019 was recorded at 1.3 percent.

Currently, the country’s year-to-date inflation for the year 2020 was posted at 2.6 percent.

Inflation for November was beyond the 2.4 to 3.2 percent range that was forecast by economists of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for the said month.

The BSP earlier predicted that the pace of price increases likely accelerated in November due to higher energy costs and more expensive food items caused by the series of typhoons.

Inflation refers to the rate of change in the average prices of goods and services typically purchased by consumers. BSP says that “if inflation is low and stable, then we say that there is price stability.”

According to the PSA, the annual increase of 4.3 percent in the heavily-weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages primarily pushed up the overall inflation in November.

“Contributing also to the uptrend in the overall inflation during the month was the higher annual increment noted in alcoholic beverages and tobacco at 12.3 percent, it added.

Annual mark-ups decelerated in the indices of the rest of the commodity groups, except for recreation and culture whose rate stayed at -0.6 percent, the state statistics bureau added.

Meanwhile, core inflation—which excludes select volatile food and energy items to measure underlying price pressures—moved up at a faster pace of 3.2 percent in November from 3.0 percent in October. In November 2019, core inflation was posted at 2.6 percent.

/MUF