Eastern Visayas’ inflation rate accelerates further by 5.7% in March

By PSA-8
April 17, 2018

TACLOBAN CITY – The annual Inflation Rate (IR) of Eastern Visayas accelerated further by 5.7% in March 2018. This IR was 1.4 percentage point faster compared to the 4.3% IR a month ago, and 2.8 percentage points faster than the recorded 2.9% IR in the same period last year. The regional inflation rate was 1.4 percentage point faster than the 4.3% national average in March.

Four provinces in the region – Biliran, Samar, Leyte, and Eastern Samar posted faster inflation rates in March compared with their figures in the previous month. On the other hand, Southern Leyte registered decreased IR, while Northern Samar had sustained its inflation rate from February. Northern Samar registered the highest IR at 7.1%, while Southern Leyte posted the lowest IR at 0.9% (Table 1).

By major commodity groups, Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels, Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages, Transport, Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Maintenance of the House, Health, and Education exhibited higher annual growths from February to March.

Annual price changes in Clothing and Footwear slowed down from February to March. The rest of the commodity groups retained their previous month’s rates.

The Purchasing Power of Peso (PPP) of the region was recorded at P0.82 in March 2018. This is weaker compared with the P0.83 PPP registered in the previous month. This PPP implies that goods and services worth 100 pesos in March 2018 only costs 82 pesos in 2012.

Biliran, Leyte, and Samar registered decreases in PPP compared with their figures in February. Southern Leyte recorded a 0.01 centavo increase in PPP, while the rest of the provinces had sustained PPP. Leyte recorded the strongest PPP at P0.85, followed by Southern Leyte at P0.84. Northern Samar and Samar, meanwhile, posted the weakest PPP at P0.77 (Table 1).