Philippine inflation slows down to 2.6 pct in February

Source: Xinhua | 2020-03-06

The Philippines' headline inflation slowed down to 2.6 percent in February, compared to 2.9 percent in January and 3.8 percent in February 2019, the Philippine Statistics Authority said on Thursday.

"The downtrend in the inflation was mainly brought about by the slower annual increase in the heavily-weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages index at 2.1 percent during the month," PSA head Claire Dennis Mapa said in a report.

Mapa added that annual increments decelerated in the indices of alcoholic beverages and tobacco at 18.2 percent; housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels, 1.7 percent; and transport, 1.8 percent.

On the other hand, he said a higher annual mark-up of 3.5 percent was noted in the index of furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house.

The rest of the commodity groups retained their previous month's annual growth rates, Mapa added.

In a statement issued on Feb. 28, the Philippine central bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, projected February 2020 inflation to settle within the 2.4-3.2 percent range.