Price increase of goods and services slows down by 3.9 percent in December 2023

Prices of goods and services in Aklan inflated at a slower rate of 3.9 percent in December 2023 from 4.0 percent reported in November 2023.

The 3.9 percent headline inflation resulted from the increase of consumer price index to 122.7 in December 2023 from 118.1 index recorded in December 2022.

Consumer price index indicates that a consumer needs additional income of Php122.70, on the average, to afford buying the same 1000-peso worth of goods and services back in 2018.

Consequently, purchasing power of peso decreased from 85 centavos last year to 81 centavos in December 2023.

The downtrend of inflation was mainly brought by price trend turnaround of Food and non-alcoholic beverages from 11.8 percent in the past month to 9.9 percent during the reference month.

Followed by Furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance which inflated by 0.9 percent in December 2023 from 1.8 percent in the previous month.

Also, Personal care, and miscellaneous goods and services increased slower than last month from 2.5 percent to 2.3 percent in December.

Meanwhile, inflation trend of most food commodities, except Rice, declined in December 2023.

Vegetables led the downtrend of food commodities at -2.5 percent inflation from 13.5 percent last month.

Fish and other seafoods followed with 5.5 percent compared to 10.2 percent in November, and Meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals inflated by 25.1 percent compared to 26.6 percent in the past month.

The consumer price index measures the overall change of a representative basket of goods and services from base year 2018, while, inflation rate denotes the year-on-year change in consumer price indices.

These are economic indicators used in decision and policy making by planners, financial markets, businesses, and consumers.