Inflation rate of fuel, light and water in CAR drops to –8.0 percent in December 2008

The plummeting price of oil in the world market saw the drop in the annual inflation rate of Fuel, Light and Water (FLW) in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) to negative 8.0 percent in December 2008. This reflected a substantially greater decrease as compared to the national performance of negative 1.7 percent for the same period.  At the opposite end of the spectrum, the inflation of Food, Beverages and Tobacco (FBT) commodity group remained at double-digit levels throughout the second semester of last year, ending at 14.6 percent in December 2008.  FBT contributes about 38.0 percent to the market basket for areas outside the national capital region (AONCR).

FLW also helped the over-all headline inflation rate to remain at the single-digit level of positive 8.3 percent for the same month.  FBT shares about 4.0 percent of the total market basket.  Meanwhile, other commodity groups registered almost insignificant changes from November to December 2008.  Services dipped slightly by 1.5 percentage points while Clothing remained nearly at a standstill with a 0.1 percentage point decrease.  The Housing & Repairs and Miscellaneous commodity groups maintained their November levels at 5.4 percent and 2.0 percent, respectively.

On a month-on-month basis, CAR’s inflation rate for all items improved by 1.3 percentage points from November to December 2008.  The national rate did slightly better with its decrease of 1.9 percentage points in the same period. 

Comparison of regional inflation rates shows that Region IV-A had the lowest at 7.4 percent while Region 8 had the highest with 13.7 percent.  CAR ranked number five both in the country-wide and Luzon-wide regional comparisons.

Inflation rate represents changes in the consumer price index (CPI) traditionally taken year-on-year or month-on-month.  It shows how fast or how slow the CPI increases or decreases.  The CPI measures the monthly or yearly changes in the average retail prices of a fixed basket of goods and services commonly purchased by a particular group of people in a given area.  Because of this characteristic, CPI is used as a means of obtaining comparative price movements in different geographic areas, industries or specific businesses. CPI also reflects the economic well-being of said areas, industries or businesses.  The CPI is released monthly by the National Statistics Office.

Page uploaded: January 30, 2009