CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (PIA)–The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)-X reported that the inflation rate in Northern Mindanao slowed down to 7.4% in March 2023 from the 8.0% inflation rate in February 2023.
The main sources of deceleration were food and non-alcoholic beverages, with inflation decelerating to 10.9% from 11.8%; housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels with an inflation rate of 5.0%; and transport with inflation slowing down to 3.5%.
PSA-X Chief Statistical Specialist Sarah Balagbis said the top contributor to the deceleration of inflation in food and non-alcoholic beverages was vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas, and pulses which decelerated by 9.0 percentage points, from 31.6% to 22.6% with onion as the main source of the slowdown.
Inflation of rice also decreased to 3.7% from 4.6% in February 2023 while meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals posted 13.3% inflation from 14.7%.
Contributing to the deceleration in transport were gasoline with -6.2% inflation in March from 4.4% in February, as well as, diesel with-5.7% inflation from 15.1% in February.
On the other hand, the decrease in the inflation of housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels was attributed to electricity with -1.3% inflation from 3.2% in February; and LPG with 3.1% from 14.7% in February.
PSA-X supervising statistical specialist Brenda Lynn Castro, meanwhile said they are hoping for the deceleration to continue until the end of the year so that the inflation rate would normalize and public spending would increase. (APB/PIA-10)
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