Inflation rate in EV increases to 1.7% in July 2020

By PSA-8
August 18, 2020

TACLOBAN CITY – Inflation Rate (IR) in Eastern Visayas increased to 1.7 percent in July 2020. This IR is 0.6 percentage point higher compared with the 1.1 percent IR in June 2020. This is also 0.2 percentage point higher than the recorded 1.5 percent IR in the same period last year.

The regional IR is 1.0 percentage point higher than the 2.7 percent national average inflation rate in July 2020.

All provinces registered higher inflation rates in July 2020 compared with their figures in June 2020, except for Eastern Samar, which recorded a 0.2 percentage point decrease from its inflation rate a month ago. Its IR eased down to 0.9 percent in July 2020 from 1.1 percent in June 2020.

Meanwhile, Biliran recorded the highest growth of 2.3 percentage points to 0.8 percent IR recorded in July 2020 from 1.5 percent deflation in June 2020. The rest of the provinces registered increases ranging from 0.1 percentage point to 0.8 percentage point. Northern Samar posted the highest IR at 4.9 percent. Leyte, meanwhile, recorded the lowest IR during the month in review at 0.7 percent.

Majority of the 11 commodity groups in the region exhibited lower IRs in July 2020 compared with their rates in June 2020. However, these were offset by the higher IRs recorded in three (3) other commodity groups, which resulted to 0.6 percentage point increase in the overall IR of the region in July 2020.

Education commodity group registered the biggest decline of 2.0 percentage points to zero inflation rate in July 2020 from 2.0 percent IR in June 2020.

Alcoholic beverages and tobacco commodity group declined by 1.0 percentage point to 7.7 percent in July 2020 from 8.7 percent in June 2020. This can be attributed to the 2.1 percentage points and 0.3 percentage point decreases in the indices for alcoholic beverages (3.0 percent) and tobacco (10.6 percent), respectively.

The commodity group of restaurants and miscellaneous goods and services went down by 0.5 percentage point, from 4.2 percent IR in June 2020 to 3.7 percent IR in July 2020. This can be traced to the 1.5 percentage points and 0.4 percentage point decreases in the indices for catering services (5.9 percent) and personal effects not elsewhere classified (1.1 percent), respectively.

Communications commodity group eased down by 0.4 percentage point to 1.7 percent deflation in July 2020 from 1.3 percent deflation in June 2020.

Compared with the June 2020 level, the IRs for the commodity groups of recreation and culture (1.1 percent); furnishings, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house (2.5 percent); and health (0.7 percent) were lower by0.3 percentage point, 0.2 percentage point and 0.1 percentage point, respectively.

On the other hand, transport commodity group registered the biggest increase of 2.5 percentage points to 1.0 percent deflation in July 2020 from 3.5 percent deflation in June 2020. This was brought about by the lower deflations recorded in both operation of personal transport equipment (3.0 percent) and transport services (1.0 percent) indices in July 2020.

The IR of housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels commodity group rose to 1.0 percent in July 2020, higher by 2.1 percentage points compared with its 1.1 percent deflation a month ago.

The IR of the heavily weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages commodity group inched up slightly by 0.3 percentage point to 1.8 percent in July 2020 from 1.5 percent IR in June 2020. Higher IRs were noted in majority of the items under this commodity group. Vegetables index registered the highest increase of 1.8 percentage points, posting 6.4 percent IR in July 2020 from 4.6 percent IR in June 2020. Rice and bread and cereals indices continued to register deflations but at slower rates of 2.6 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively. Double digit IR was still noted in fruits index during the month in review but at a lower rate of 14.8 percent. Meat index, meanwhile, registered 0.2 percent deflation in July 2020 from 1.1 percent IR in June 2020.

IR for clothing and footwear commodity group retained its previous month’s IR at 3.0 percent.

The Purchasing Power of Peso (PPP) of the region remained at P0.79 in July 2020. This PPP implies that the goods and services worth P79.00 in 2012 is worth P100.00 in July 2020.

Samar’s PPP weakened by P0.01 while the rest of the provinces sustained their PPP last month. Biliran recorded the strongest PPP at P0.83. Leyte ranked second at P0.81, followed by Southern Leyte at P0.80, Eastern Samar at P0.78 and Samar at P0.74. Northern Samar posted the weakest PPP at P0.73.