DOWNLOAD
Inflation Update: Inflation seen slowing down in 2024
The continued deceleration of rice inflation and the weakening of pressures on food prices have led us to lower our inflation forecasts this year.
By Metrobank Research
The Philippines’ headline inflation rose to 3.8% year-on-year in April from 3.7% in March, mainly driven by higher prices in food and nonalcoholic beverages. This brings the year-to-date average inflation from January to April 2024 to 3.4%.
Rice remains to be the major contributory factor to April inflation as prices continued to accelerate by 23.9% during the month. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), global rice prices remain elevated but have started to decline after having peaked in January.
We are revising our yearend average inflation forecast to 4.0% for 2024 from 4.3%, and 4.2% for 2025 from 4.3%, on the back of expectations of continued deceleration of rice inflation, and a possible weakening of upward pressures of the El Niño phenomenon on food prices. Moreover, the effects of the ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East on oil prices have been tempered as seen in the recent Brent crude oil prices, which remained below this year’s peak of USD 92.18 per barrel last April.
Inflation Update: Inflation is slower than expected in April
We have revised our inflation forecasts for 2024 and 2025 amid weaking inflationary pressures.
Download