Prices growth of widely used goods and services soared for more than three years in June fueled by higher costs of food and transport items, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported this morning.
The Philippines’ annual headline inflation continued to move at a faster pace of 6.1 percent in June 2022. This is the highest recorded inflation since October 2018. Inflation in the previous month stood at 5.4 percent and in June 2021, 3.7 percent. Average inflation for the first half of the year was posted at 4.4 percent.
The uptrend of inflation for June 2022 was primarily brought about by the higher annual growth rate in the index for food and non-alcoholic beverages at 6.0 percent, from 4.9 percent in the previous month. This was followed by transport whose index grew by 17.1 percent annually, from 14.6 percent in May 2022. Relative to their annual rates in the previous month, annual increases were also higher in the indices of the following commodity groups:
a. Alcoholic beverages and tobacco, 7.8 percent; b. Clothing and footwear, 2.2 percent; c. Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, 6.6 percent; d. Furnishings, household equipment and maintenance, 2.9 percent; e. Health, 2.6 percent; f. Recreation, sport and culture, 1.9 percent; and g. Personal care, and miscellaneous goods and services, 2.6 percent.
On the contrary, the annual mark-up in the information and communication index decelerated to 0.5 percent. Moreover, the indices of education services, restaurants and accommodation services, and financial services retained their previous month’s inflation rates.
Meanwhile, inflation for food at the national level rose further to 6.4 percent in June 2022, from 5.2 percent in May 2022. In June 2021, food inflation was lower at 3.9 percent.
The acceleration in the food inflation was primarily influenced by the higher annual growth in the meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals index at 8.1 percent. Also contributing to the uptrend in the food inflation was fruits and nuts food group which registered an inflation rate of 1.1 percent, from -2.4 percent in the previous month.
The rest of the food groups exhibited faster annual growth rates, except for vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses food group which registered a lower inflation of 14.4 percent.
Source: PSA
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