Inflation rate in Eastern Visayas climbs to 6.9% in October 2018

By PSA-8
November 16, 2018

TACLOBAN CITY – The Inflation Rate (IR) of Eastern Visayas continued to increase at 6.9% in October 2018. This IR is 0.4 percentage point higher compared with the 6.5% IR a month ago, and 3.6 percentage points higher than the recorded 3.3% IR in the same period last year. The regional inflation rate was 0.2 percentage point higher than the 6.7% national average in October 2018.

Leyte and Southern Leyte posted the highest increase of 0.8 percentage point each. Leyte registered 7.1% IR in October from 6.3% in September, while Southern Leyte recorded 4.0% IR in October from 3.2% in September. Biliran recorded a 0.3 percentage point increase from 5.1% in September to 5.4% during the reference month.

On the other hand, 0.2 percentage point decrease in IR were noted in Northern Samar and Samar settling at 6.3% and 8.1%, respectively. Eastern Samar registered a 0.1 percentage point decrease, from 8.9% in September to 8.8% in October. It is still, however, the highest IR among the provinces during the reference period. Southern Leyte, meanwhile, posted the lowest at 4.0%.

Among the commodity groups, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels registered the highest increase of 2.2 percentage points. It was posted at 8.3% in October 2018 from 6.1% in September 2018. This can be attributed to the huge increase in the index of electricity, gas and other fuels.

The transport index also registered an increase of 1.4 percentage points in October 2018 (8.6%), from 7.2% in September 2018. Contributing to the uptrend were the gains seen in the index of operation of personal transport equipment and transport services.

The heavily weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages eased to 8.9% in October 2018 from its previous month’s rate of 9.2%, a decrease of 0.3 percentage point. This can be traced to slower price increases of fruits, fish, oils and fats, and vegetables.

Education further deflated to 16.4% in October 2018, recording a 0.2 percentage point decrease from the -16.2% a month ago, attributed to the decrease in the index for tertiary education.

The Purchasing Power of Peso (PPP) of the region remained at P0.80 in October 2018. This PPP implies that goods and services worth 100 pesos in October 2018 only costs 80 pesos in 2012.

All provinces sustained their PPP from last month, except Leyte and Southern Leyte, which registered a 0.01 centavo decrease each in PPP compared with their figures in September 2018. Leyte and Biliran recorded the strongest PPP at P0.82. Southern Leyte ranked second at P0.80, followed by Eastern Samar at P0.78. Northern Samar and Samar posted the weakest PPP at P0.75.