The rate of change in the price of consumer goods and services accelerated to 8.7 percent year-on-year in January, its fastest pace since the 9.1 percent recorded in November 2008, on account of higher cost of house rental, utilities, food and transportation.
In December, the consumer price index stood at 8.1 percent.
Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, also quickened in January to 7.4 percent from 6.9 percent in December. This is highest since April 1999 when core inflation stood at 7.6 percent.
National Statistician Dennis Mapa told a news conference that nine of 13 commodities monitored in the consumer basket all showed higher prices in January.
“Our seasonally-adjusted, month-on-month numbers showed a full percentage point increase. So, that’s quite large.”
National Statistician Dennis Mapa
Mapa said the main risk to inflation rising further this year is food prices. “Right now, there are risks associated with relatively high inflation across different commodity groups,” he added.
Inflation in Metro Manila rose to 8.6 percent in January, and showed the fastest rate of inflation outside the National Capital Region at 10.3 percent in Western Visayas.
The CPI for the bottom 30 percent of households accelerated to 9.7 percent in January, its fastest since the 12.2 percent posted in March 2009. Inflation for the bottom 30 percent of households stood at 9.4 percent in December.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, which set an inflation target range of 2 percent to 4 percent, expects the CPI to stay outside its target range for most of 2023 before easing in 2024. Analysts expect the BSP to further raise interest rate this year, largely to match the hawkish stance of the Federal Reserve and keep the peso stable against the U.S. dollar.
