The survey of Retail Prices of Commodities conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) revealed that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or the change in the average prices of a fixed basket of Non-Acoholic Beverages in Guimaras province remained steady at 133.4 for January and February 2020.
Prices of the Food commodity groups, however, slightly inched up to 131.8 from the 130.9 index in January of 2020 brought about by the increasing price movements of the five Food commodity sub-groups, namely Fruits, from 186.0 index in January to 190.5 in February; Meat (124.4 to 124.7); Rice (122.0 to 123.3); Bread and Cereals (121.1 to 122.6); and Food Products N.E.C. (114.9 to 115.8) in the first two months of 2020.
The flimsy price movements of the Food commodity group was tempered by the steady indices of the two sub-groups, namely: Sugar, Jam, Honey, Chocolate and Confectionery (112.9) and Fish (134.6) during the first two months of the current year and the slower price movements of Vegetables from a 185.2 index in January to 184.1 in February of 2020; Corn from 138.4 to 137.4 and Milk, Cheese and Eggs from an index of 118.6 to 118.2 in the same reference period.
Comparing the monthly inflation rates of the first two months of the years 2018-2020, inflation level of the current year started at a faster rate of 3.7 percent in January, and higher by 0.4 and 0.5 percentage points over the same months of 2018 and 2019, respectively.
On the contrary, the February 2020 level was slower by 0.2 percentage points than the 4.0 inflation registered in Feb 2018, but faster by 1.2 percentage points than the 2.6 inflation of the same month in 2019.
In the three comparative months of the years 2018-2020, the fastest headline inflation rate was at 4.0 percent recorded in February of 2018 and the slowest was at 2.6 percent in February of 2019.
Nonetheless, the province’s inflation in February 2020 slightly moved up from its 3.7 rate a month ago.
