PRICE SITUATION: Year-on-Year

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all income household in Abra for January 2023 is 119.1 This implies that a household in Abra needs 19.10 pesos more to purchase the same basket of goods worth 100 pesos in 2018.

This month’s CPI for all items is 7.7 higher than last years’s index. Changes in the prices of different commodities determine the fluctuations in the monthly CPI.

The higher index was due to the recorded price changes in the following: Transport at 11.6 percent, Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels with 8.9 percent, and Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages with 8.8 percent.

All other commodity groups increased in prices, except Information and Communication, Education Services and Financial Services which posted a static percent change.

Inflation Rate (IR)

Figure 2 below shows a difference of 4.5 percent increase on year-on-year comparison between February 2022 with 3.2 and February 2023 with 7.7 inflation rates, and a 1.6 percent decrease compared to January 2023 with 9.3 inflation rate.

Figure 3 shows the trend of inflation rate in the province for the period February 2022 to February 2023. Inflation rate posted the least in February 2022 with 3.2 percent while its highest inflation rate was observed in January 2023 with 9.3 percent.

Concepts and Definitions

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

The CPI is an indicator of the changes in the average retail prices of a fixed basket of goods and services commonly purchased by households relative to a base year.

Uses of CPI

The CPI is most widely used in the calculation of the inflation rate and purchasing power of peso. It is a major statistical series used for economic analysis and as a monitoring indicator of government economic policy.

Computation of CPI

The computation of the CPI involves consideration of the following important points:

a. Base Period- The reference date or base period is the benchmark or reference date or period at which the index is taken as equal to 100.

b. Market Basket- A sample of the thousands of varieties of goods purchased for consumption and services availed by the households in the country selected to represent the composite price behavior of all goods and services purchased by consumers.

c. Weighting System- The weighting pattern uses the expenditures on various consumers’ items purchased by households as a proportion to total expenditure.

d. Formula-The formula used in computing the CPI is the weighted arithmetic mean of price relatives, the Laspeyre’s formula with a fixed based year period (2006) weights.

Inflation Rate is the rate of change of the CPI expressed in percent. Inflation is interpreted in terms of declining purchasing power of peso.

Headline Inflation refers to the rate of change in the CPI, a measure of the average standard “basket” of goods and services consumed by a typical family.

Purchasing Power of Peso shows how much the peso in the base period is worth in the current period. It is computed as the reciprocal of the CPI for the period under review multiplied by 100.