YEAR-ON-YEAR INFLATION RATES

Headline inflation rate or the annual rate of change on the prices of goods and services in the market basket for all income households in SOCCSKSARGEN Region decreased to 4.4% in March 2024 from 5.0% the previous month. This is 0.7 percentage point higher than the 3.7% national headline inflation for the current month under review.

From 2019 to 2023, the annual average inflation rate on the prices of goods and services in the market basket was highest in 2022 and 2023 at 5.6 percent and the lowest was recorded in 2019 at 2.2 percent.

In October 2019, at -0.3%, was the lowest monthly inflation recorded from 2019 to 2023. On the other hand, the highest monthly inflation rate was posted in January 2023 and February 2023 at 7.4%.

Headline Inflation for All Items in 2023 exhibited a downtrend from 7.3% in March to 3.6% in July. Inflation started to increase in August until September and eases in October to November. A slight increase was noted in December. In 2024, a downtrend was noted in January and increased in February by 0.9 percentage point, at 5.0 percent. In March 2024, inflation decreased to 4.4 percent (Table 2).

From February 2023 to February 2024, the highest headline inflation was recorded in February 2023 at 7.4% while the lowest headline inflation was recorded in July 2023 at 3.6 percent (Figure 1).

Among the commodity groups, ten (10) commodity groups exhibited lower price gains, namely: Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco (from 9.6% to 7.0%); Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (from 6.9% to 6.3%); Restaurant and Accommodation Services (from 7.4% to 5.7%); Health (from 5.0% to 4.9%); Recreation, Sports, and Culture (from 5.0% to 4.6%); Personal Care and Miscellaneous Goods and Services (from 4.1% to 3.5%); Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Household Maintenance (from 3.3% to 3.2%); Clothing and Footwear (from 3.2% to 1.9%); Housing, Water; Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels (from 2.6% to 1.6%); Information and Communication (from 0.3% to 0.1%);

On the other hand, among the commodity groups, only Transport exhibited higher price gain from -0.1 percent to 0.8 percent.

Meanwhile, Education Services, with an inflation of 2.9%, and Financial Services, with an inflation of -0.1% had no change or negligible change from the previous month’s rate (Table 3)

The major contributors to the 6.5% inflation on the Food index in March 2024 were Cereals and cereal products; Milk, other dairy products and eggs; and Fruits and nuts.

Commodities that contributed largely to the price downtrend of Food were were Fish and other seafood; Meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals; and Milk, other dairy products and eggs.