Guimaras’ August 2021 inflation slackens to 3.4%

The inflation rate, or movement of prices of goods, in Guimaras in August 2021 slackened to 3.4 percent, slower by 0.3 percentage points against the August 2020 rate of 3.7 percent.

The lower inflation is due to slower price movements of four commodity group items.

The August 2021 inflation is 0.8 percentage points lower from the 4.2 percent annual rate of change in July this year, based on the result of the Retail Prices Survey (RPS) conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

That means that the costs of goods purchased in August of this year were 3.4 percent lower than the prices of products purchased in August 2020 and in July 2021,” Provincial Statistics Officer Nelida B. Losare said

The slower inflation rates in August 2021 were due to the decreased prices of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco (16.6), Clothing and footwear (3.1%), Housing, Water, electricity, gas, and other fuels (-1.7%), and Health at (1.9%).

The Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco decreased by 4.0 percentage points from 20.6 inflation in August 2020 to 16.6 in August 2021, mainly pushed by the slower price index of Tobacco.

“The Clothing and footwear commodity group dropped by 0.2 percentage points from 3.3 inflation in August 2020 to 3.1 in August 2021, due to the 10.5% decrement on the price changes of clothing,” Losare said.

Losare said only one commodity group deflated in August 2021 – the Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Other Fuels with a -1.7% rate, mainly due to lower price change in Actual Rentals for Housing (-1.3%) and Other Fuels (-3.2%).

Slower inflation in Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels, which dropped to -3.2 percent; and Actual Rentals, down to -1.3%; also depressed Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other Fuels to -1.7% in August 2021, from 5.4% in August 2020.

On the contrary, seven (7) of the commodity group items moved at a faster rate of change in August 2021 compared to a year ago:

• Food and non-alcoholic beverages, 2.9% from 0.5%
• Furnishing, Household Equipment, and Routine Maintenance of the House, 4.4% from 2.5%
• Transport, 16.4% from 5.9%
• Communication, 0.1% from 0.0%
• Recreation and Culture, 0.6% from -0.9%
• Education, 5.1% from 0.0%
• Restaurant and Miscellaneous goods and services, 9.6% from 3.5%

The commodities are monitored by the PSA during the Retail Prices Survey (RPS) for August 2021 with an index of 129.5, which means that an average Guimarasnon household needed PHP29.5 more in August 2021 to buy a basket of goods worth PHP100 in 2012.

Looking at the August year-on-year inflation rate throughout the nine consecutive years, 2018 had the fastest rate of 7.2%, and August 2015 had the slowest rate of -1.6%.

The August inflation rates from 2013 until 2021 moved at a random and unpredictable pattern.

Figure 1 shows that the occurrences of higher price change rates were from 2015 until 2019. From -1.6% rate in 2015, inflation soared to 4.4% in 2016, then went down to 1.6% in 2017.

It then jumped by 5.6 points to 7.2% in 2018 before plunging by 4.9 points to 2.3% in 2019.