Guimaras’ inflation slows down to 2.7% in July 2019

AFTER peaking at 4.1 percent in June 2019, the year on year headline inflation rate of Guimaras province slowed down to 2.7 percent in July.

This is due to deceleration in seven commodity groups:

• the Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (4.7% from 6.4% a year ago);
• Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco (8.5% from 15%);
• Clothing and Footwear (3.4% from 3.5%);
• Other fuels (1.5% from 3.4%);
• Furnishings, Household Equipment & Routing Maintenance of the House (1.3% from 3.2%);
• Health (1.7% from 2.1 %);
• Education (1.3% from 1.5%).

“On transport commodity group, the higher index was observed in Operation of Personal Transport Equipment with 0.7 percent increment over its 95.7 in July 2018 while Transport Services dropped by 2.4 percent from 100.7 index in July 2018 to 98.3 index in July of the current year,” according to Nelida B. Losare, Provincial Statistics Officer of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)-Guimaras.

The other six commodities which posted upticks in inflation in July were:

• Food and non-alcoholic beverages (4.7%);
• Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco (8.5%);
• Clothing and Footwear (3.4%);
• Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas & Other Fuels (1.5%);
• Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Maintenance of the House (1.3%);
• Health (1.7%);
• Recreation and Culture (5.1%) and;
• Restaurant and Miscellaneous Goods and Services (3.6%).

Transport and Communication remain unchanged at 98.7 and 99.9, respectively.

On a month on month, however, “the commodity groups which contributed a lot in the slower inflation of Guimaras province were: Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages with a rate of -0.2 percent; Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Fuels (-0.1%) and Transport (-1.1%),” Losare said.

Four out of nine food items and sub groups posted index decreases:

• Fish (-2.7%);
• Vegetables (-1.5%) and; Food Products N, E. C. (-0.4%).

Faster indices were noticed in Bread and Cereals (0.3%), Meat (0.4%), Other Cereals, Flour, Cereal Preparation, Bread, Pasta & Other Bakery Products (0.4%), Meat (0.4%), Milk Cheese and Eggs (0.5%), Fruits (3.9%), Sugar, Jam, Honey, Chocolate and Confectionery (0.3%).

Oils and fats remain unchanged at 10.7.

Under the Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Fuels group, two sub groups remained stable: the actual rentals for housing (128.4); water supply and miscellaneous services relating to the dwelling (98.2 for the last 7 months).

Slower index of 106.1 was noticed in Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels with 0.2 percent change.

Only Maintenance and Repair of Dwelling increased from 127.5 in June to 127.6 in July.