Food, Beverages and Tobacco (FBT) and Non-FBT Items
(NCR and AONCR - October 2009)

1. CPI of Food, Beverages and Tobacco (FBT): National Capital Region (NCR) and Areas Outside the National Capital Region (AONCR)
   

   The seasonally adjusted CPI of FBT items in NCR and AONCR correspondingly accelerated to 156.5 and 165.2 in October from their respective September levels of 152.8 and 163.6.

   While the country was still reeling from the effects of typhoon “Ondoy” in September, seasonal factors such as the heavy downpours caused by another tropical storm “Pepeng” hit northern Luzon during the early part of October. The heavy rains triggered landslides and road cuts thereby limiting the volume of vegetable deliveries in the NCR markets. This resulted to upward price adjustments of vegetables during the month. Higher prices of fruits not in season were also observed. In addition, prices of fish were on the uptrend as its supply in the markets was affected by the difficulty in catching fish species due to unfavorable weather conditions. These seasonal factors pushed up prices of FBT items in NCR. However, these seasonal factors did not affect the overall prices of FBT items in AONCR relative to the expected trend.

   Compared with last month, price movements of the seasonally adjusted CPI for FBT items in NCR and AONCR correspondingly went up to 2.4 percent and 1.0 percent in October from 0.7 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively.

2. CPI of Non-FBT items: National Capital Region (NCR) and Areas Outside the National Capital Region (AONCR)

The seasonally adjusted CPI of non-FBT items in NCR and AONCR recorded respectively at 160.3 and 159.7 in October were higher than their corresponding levels of 159.7 and 159.1 in September.

The on-going preparation for the holiday season resulted to higher volume of production of selected goods during the month. This seasonal factor however did not push down prices of non-FBT items in the two areas.

The month-on-month inflation of the seasonally adjusted CPI for non-FBT items in NCR moved at a slower pace of 0.4 percent from 0.6 percent while that for AONCR remained at 0.4 percent.

For technical notes and other related information,
please visit:
http://www.census.gov.ph
or contact the Economic Indicators and Indices Division, NSO
at telephone number 716-3935

Page last updated: November 5, 2009