BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera office of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-CAR) disclosed the purchasing power in the region for November 2016 was at 69 centavos, a decrease of 2 centavos from the 71 centavos in November 2015.
The PSA-CAR noted the drop in the purchasing power of the peso regionwide means that the market value of goods and services worth 69 centavos in November 2006 were bought at P1 in November 2016.
Further, the purchasing power of the peso in all provinces generally declined in November 2016 compared to that of November 2015, except for Apayao which remained at 76 centavos.
The PSA-CAR claimed Apayao had the highest peso value at 76 centavos, followed by Abra at 73 centavos and Kalinga at 70 centavos.
Meanwhile, Mountain Province had the lowest peso value at 65 centavos while the purchasing power of the peso in Benguet was at 69 centavos.
The purchasing power of the peso measures how much the peso in the reference is worth in another year and base year is the reference point of the index number series, at which the index number is set to zero while market basket is a sample of goods and services used to represent all goods and services produced or bought.
By commodity, the PSA-CAR stated the month on month growth of the heavily weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages index in the region accelerated to 4.3 percent as compared to 2.7 percent of the previous year.
Moreover, the inflation rate in alcoholic beverages and tobacco is the highest among the other commodities in the region with 8.0 percent, followed by food and non-alcoholic beverages with 4.3 percent.
At the same time, furnishing, household equipment and routine maintenance of the house, communication, recreation and culture, and education remained at 1.6, 0.1, 1.3 and 1.2 percent, respectively.
By food items year on year, the PSA-CAR added vegetables, corn, and fish persisted in having the highest price increase for the month of November 2016 with 19.9, 8.9 and 6.5 percent, respectively, while other cereals (-0.5), and food products, (-5.3) incurred a general price decrease.
Other cereals, and food products, not elsewhere classified, continued to have negative inflation rates at -0.5 and -5.3 percent, respectively.
Economists in the region predicted a significant improvement in the purchasing power of the peso by next year with the expected robust economic growth through the aggressive implementation of numerous government projects by concerned government agencies in various parts of the region this year.
By HENT
