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By Maricel E. Burgonio, Reporter
Inflation or increase in prices is expected to drop further in the
last two months of the year, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said
Wednesday.
Diwa Guinigundo, the central bank’s deputy
governor, told reporters that inflation is expected to fall between
9 percent and 10 percent in November and December of 2008.
“We should be closer to 10 percent or even 9
percent,” he said.
Inflation peaked in August to 12.5 percent but
declined to 11.8 percent in September and 11.2 percent in October.
The October figure brought the 10-month average
to 9.4 percent, which was within the Bangko Sentral’s projection
of 9 percent to 11 percent for 2008.
Decreases in prices of food items—such as
rice, corn, pork and chicken—along with reductions in prices of
kerosene, gasoline and diesel, pushed down overall consumer prices.
Rice prices remained high, though.
Rollbacks in prices of gasoline and diesel in
the global market also brought down their prices in the Philippines.
(See related front-page story.)
Core inflation, meanwhile, was higher in October
at 7.8 percent compared to 7.5 percent in September, because items
whose prices went down the most were mostly those excluded from the
core-inflation measure.
Bangko Sentral Governor Amando Tetangco Jr.
earlier said that the recent plunges in oil and non-oil commodity
prices diminished upside risks to price stability and gave monetary
authorities more elbow room to review the current monetary policy
stance with sufficient confidence that inflation would further drop.
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