The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Wednesday reported that the inflation rate in March this year slowed down to 7.6 percent from 8.6 percent the previous month. In a press conference, PSA Undersecretary and National Statistician Dennis Mapa said last month's figure brought the inflation rate for the first quarter of the year to 8.3 percent. Mapa attributed the downtrend in inflation to the slower increase in prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages at 9.3 percent in March from 10.8 percent in the previous survey. He said the lower food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation was mainly due to the slowdown in the inflation of vegetables, including onions. The rate of price increase of vegetables, tubers and others was at 20 percent in March from 33.1 percent in February. Mapa said the food basket contributed 3.3 percentage points to the overall 7.6 percent inflation last month. However, Mapa said the PSA has observed a slow upward trend in the prices of rice since the start of the year. Inflation of meat products also decelerated to 4.6 percent in March from 6.5 percent in February, while sugar, confectionery and desserts declined to 35.2 percent inflation from 37 percent in the same period. Contributing to the downward trend of inflation last month were transport, with inflation decelerating to 5.3 percent from 9 percent; and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, with inflation slowing down to 7.6 percent from 8.6 percent. Moreover, the inflation rate in the National Capital Region (NCR) also decelerated to 7.8 percent in March 2023 from 8.7 percent in February this year. Inflation in areas outside NCR (AONCR) was also at a slower pace at 7.5 percent in March from 8.5 percent in its previous month. All regions, except for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), posted lower inflation rates in March this year, the PSA said. Meanwhile, Mapa reported that the inflation rate for the country's bottom 30 percent income households was at 8.8 percent in March 2023. Although this declined from the 9.7 percent inflation in the previous month, he said the impacts of the increase in prices of goods were heavier for the bottom 30 percent income households. 'The direction is going down, but of course, we want to bring down the inflation of the bottom 30 percent to a lower level because the effect is greater for the bottom 30 percent income households compared to the, let's say, higher income household… The idea here is you look at where the weights are really heavy, and this is really food,' he added.
Source: Philippines News Agency