Price inflation or the annual rate of change of prices of goods and services in Aklan accelerated to 6.7 percent in September 2022, up from 6.3 percent in the previous month, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
It is way higher compared to 0.1 percent inflation posted in September 2021, and the highest since January 2019.
The fast annual growth was mainly due to increases in Food items with 9.9 percent from 9.4 percent in August; housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels spikes at 4.7 percent from 4 percent; and clothing and footwear which inflated from 1.3 percent to 2.4 percent.
Also, faster inflations were observed in alcoholic beverages, from 8.5 percent to 9.4 percent; personal care and miscellaneous products, from 0.7 to 1.1; Health, 3 to 3.4; and furnishings and other household maintenance products, from 7.3 to 7.5.
On the other hand, year-to-year inflation slowed down for transport commodities from 9.9 in August to 9.7 this month.
Prices of recreation, sport and culture (2.3), education services (–0.4), restaurants and accommodation services (2.7), declined from their previous month’s level.
The rest of the commodity groups either retained their previous month’s inflation rates or posted zero percent annual growths.
The uptrend inflation in food was highly contributed by faster annual price movements of sugar and related products reaching 40.4 percent inflation in September from 28.5 in August.
Fish and other seafoods, followed with 5.9 percent from 4.6 in August; while, fruits and nuts went up to 5.4 inflation compared to 1.7 a month ago.
The consumer price index of all commodities, which expresses the change in the average retail prices of a fixed basket of goods and services commonly purchased by the households relative to 2018 prices, was estimated at 115.1 in September.
This translates to a purchasing power of peso at 87 centavos per 1 peso in 2018, and further indicates that in order to buy 100-peso worth of goods and services in 2018, an individual needs an additional income of Php15.10 to buy them in September 2022.
