Inflation rate in Eastern Visayas increases to 6.1% in August 2018

By PSA-8
September 19, 2018

TACLOBAN CITY – The Inflation Rate (IR) of Eastern Visayas increased to 6.1% in August 2018. This IR is 0.2 percentage point higher compared with the 5.9% IR a month ago, but 3.1 percentage points higher than the recorded 3.0 percent IR in the same period last year.

All provinces in the region registered higher inflation rates in August 2018 compared with their figures in the previous month, except Samar, which posted a decrease of 0.2 percentage point in August 2018 (7.4%) from 7.6 percent in July 2018. Eastern Samar, meanwhile, recorded the highest IR at 8.8% during the reference month. It has also registered the highest increase in IR of 1.0 percentage point. Southern Leyte posted the lowest IR at 1.8% (Table 1).

Majority of the commodity groups in the region exhibited higher IR from July 2018 to August 2018. Recreation and culture recorded the highest increase of 3.3 percentage points. It was posted at 3.9% in August 2018 from 0.6% in July 2018. This can be attributed to the huge increase in the index of recreational and cultural services.

The heavily-weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages went up to 8.6% in August 2018 from 8.2% in July 2018, an increase of 0.4 percentage point. This can be traced to higher IR among all food items, except meat and food products not elsewhere classified, which posted slower IR. Fish remained to have a double digit IR at 19.6%, the highest among all food items (Table 2).

Inflation rate for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels slowed down to 5.3% in August 2018 from 5.9% in July 2018, a decrease by 0.6 percentage point. Similarly, IR for alcoholic beverages and tobacco also went down by 0.4 percentage points but still recorded double digit IR at 21.2%, the highest among all commodities. Transport likewise registered a decrease by 0.4 percentage point, settling at 6.8% during the month in review.

Education, meanwhile, retained its negative IR at 16.2%.

The Purchasing Power of Peso (PPP) of the region remained at P0.81 in August 2018. This PPP implies that goods and services worth 100 pesos in August 2018 only costs 81 pesos in 2012. All provinces sustained their PPP from last month, except Northern Samar, which registered a 0.02 centavo decrease in the PPP compared with its P0.77 PPP in July 2018. Leyte recorded the strongest PPP at P0.84, while Northern Samar posted the weakest at P0.75 (Table 1).