MANILA, Philippines – Prices of goods and services in the country stayed flat at 2.6 percent in May amid mixed price movements among commodity groups, the National Statistics Office reported on Wednesday.
The indices for food and non-alcoholic beverages and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels registered higher rates while the indices of seven other commodity groups slowed down. The index for transport dipped while the education index retained its previous month’s rate, the state agency said.
“This still leads us to an average inflation rate of 3 percent for the first five months of 2013, exactly at the low-end of the Development Budget Coordination Committee’s inflation target of 3 to 5 percent for 2013,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said.
Inflation a year ago was at 2.9 percent.
Headline inflation in the National Capital Region (NCR) grew to 1.8 percent in May, slightly higher than the 1.7 percent posted the previous month. A year ago, it was at 2.3 percent.
Meanwhile, areas outside NCR inched slightly upward from 2.8 percent in April to 2.9 percent in May.
