GUIMARAS – Slower price movement in passenger transport, gasoline, and diesel eased the consumer price index (CPI) in Guimaras. This pushed the province’s headline inflation rate to 4.7 percent in May slower against 4.8 percent in April 2023, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
“The transport inflation rate showed the highest share of 36.5 percent to the slower inflation of Guimaras at 4.7 percent in May, followed by housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels, with 26.8 and personal care, and miscellaneous goods and services with 22.6 percent share,” said Provincial Statistics Officer Nelida B. Losare, citing the PSA’s Retail Price Survey (RPS).
The downtrend inflation of transport (-9.9%) was mainly due to the slower price movement of tgasoline, with -20.1% chipping in 59.9% share; passenger transport by sea and the inland waterway with 64.3% revealing a split of 25.8%; diesel with -26.3% imparting 14.1%; and passenger transport by air, domestic with 46.0%, sharing 0.2%.
The slower inflation on housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels also pushed the headline inflation to move gradually in May, caused by the sluggish inflation on household cleaning and maintenance products, with 3.1% inflation.
Losare also explained that the 6.8 percent inflation of personal care and miscellaneous goods and services also contributed to a significant downtrend in the May rate due to the slower price movements of other appliances, articles, and products for personal care, with 8.5 percent inflation.
“The food inflation in Guimaras soared to 7.9 percent in May 2023, higher by 0.4 percentage point against the previous month’s rate and faster by 0.8 percentage points from the 7.1 percent inflation in the same month a year ago,” Losare said.
The 7.9 percent uptrend in the May 2023 food inflation in Guimaras was mainly due to the faster price movements of the food groups, specifically on fruits and nuts (29.7%); rice (8.9%); and vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses (13.0%) sharing 34.6, 32.3, and 25.9 percent, correspondingly.
Other food items that pushed the food inflation in May 2023 to a faster rate were: flour, bread and other bakery products, pasta products, and other cereals with 6.6% inflation sharing 4.8%; ready-made food and other food products N.E.C. with 7.7% inflation giving out 2.3%; and corn with 12.0% inflation chipping in 0.1%.
Losare elucidated further that the 4.7 percent inflation in May 2023 implied that the average price changes of consumer goods and services moved slower with 123.6 CPI.
“This indicates that a typical Guimarasnon household will require P1,236 in May 2023 to purchase a basket of basket of goods and services worth P1,000 in 2018,” Losare clarified.
The CPI is used to compute the inflation rate for a specific period, including the purchasing power of the peso (PPP).
“The PPP in Guimaras at 0.81 indicates that one peso in 2018 is worth 0.81 centavos in May 2023, representing a 0.04 percentage points depreciation from the PPP value of 0.85 recorded in May 2022”, Losare said. (PSA/PN)
