Inflation Holds Steady at 2.9% in January

MANILA, Philippines — The country's inflation rate remained at 2.9% in January, unchanged from December 2024, as reported by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Wednesday. The slight uptick in food and transport prices contributed to the steady pace of consumer price growth.

Despite being marginally higher than January 2024’s 2.8% inflation rate, the figure still aligns with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) target range of 2.0% to 4.0%. It also fell within the BSP’s estimated 2.5% to 3.3% range for the month, though it slightly exceeded the 2.8% median forecast of economists surveyed by The Manila Times.

The PSA highlighted that food and non-alcoholic beverages played a major role in inflation, recording a 3.8% rate in January 2025. This sector contributed 50.3% to the overall inflation rate, equivalent to 1.5 percentage points. Other key contributors included utility and fuel prices (16.5% share or 0.5 percentage points) and restaurant and accommodation services (10.8% share or 0.3 percentage points).

Food inflation alone rose to 4.0% in January from 3.5% in December, mainly due to higher prices of vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas, and pulses, which saw a 21.1% increase compared to 14.2% in the previous month.

Meanwhile, core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, eased to 2.6% in January from 2.8% in December and 3.8% a year earlier.

Source: https://www.manilatimes.net/2025/02/05/news/inflation-steady-at-29-in-jan/2050113