September 2008
Month-on-Month
The month-on-month growth rate of the General Retail Price Index (GRPI) in the National Capital Region (NCR) further dropped to -1.2 percent in September from -0.2 percent in August. This can be attributed to the decreases in the heavily weighted food index at -0.3 percent in September from -0.1 percent in August; mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials, -8.7 percent from -2.4 percent; and manufactured goods classified chiefly by materials, -1.6 percent from -0.1 percent. Moreover, price increment in beverages and tobacco index slowed down to 0.7 percent from 0.9 percent while prices of crude materials, inedible except fuels, machinery and transport equipment and miscellaneous manufactured articles recorded a zero growth rate from their corresponding previous monthÒ³ figures of 1.1 percent, -0.1 percent and 0.7 percent.
Downward price adjustments were registered in chicken, pork and rice. A series of rollbacks in the prices of gasoline and LPG also contributed to the downtrend. Prices of nails and steel bars also went down during the month.
Year-on-Year
On an annual basis, the growth rate of the GRPI in NCR slowed down to 11.6 percent in September from 13.3 percent in August. This was brought about by the slower annual growth rates in the food index (10.8% from 11.7%); mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials (33.7% from 45.8%); manufactured goods classified chiefly by materials (9.9% from 12.0%) and miscellaneous manufacture articles (6.5% from 6.6%). The annual increase in machinery and transport equipment index remained at 2.0 percent while the rest of the commodity groups have higher annual growth rates.
Source: National Statistics Office
Manila, PhilippinesPage last revised: November 20, 2008
