Aklan’s inflation slows further in April 2023

Headline inflation, or movement of prices of goods and services, in the province of Aklan decreased further to 6.8 percent in April 2023 from 8.1 percent in February and 6.9 percent in the past month.

This, however, is still relatively high compared to the 3.2 percent inflation reported in April 2022.

Food and non-alcoholic beverages, among the major commodity groups, led the downtrend of the overall province’s inflation with 11.9 percent this month, down from 12.6 percent a month ago.

Moreover, under this commodity group, Fish and other seafood primarily caused the slower in inflation, with 21.2 percent inflation last month down to 14.3 percent during the reference period.

Vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses followed which went down to 26.8 percent from 31.4 percent in the past month, while Sugar, confectionery and desserts dropped to 33.5 percent from 42.9 percent in March 2023.

Milk, other dairy products and eggs, Oils and fats, and Soft drinks also decreased from their previous reported inflation rates in March to April 2023.

On the other hand, inflation rates of Rice and Corn notably increased to 9.1 percent and 10.6 percent this April in comparison to 3.3 percent and 8.0 percent recorded in the past month, respectively.

In addition, the purchasing power of peso was not affected by the decrease in inflation which remained stable at Php0.84 during the reference period.

This inflation report was based on the year-on-year change in consumer price indices of a group of goods and services across time relative to 2018 prices.

Furthermore, this report revealed that an individual needed additional P190.00 in April 2023 in order to buy the same 1000-peso worth of goods and services bought in 2018.

Table 1. Inflation Rate of Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages by sub-commodities, Aklan