Release Date :
Reference Number :
23CAR44-377
Mountain Province CPI down in March 2023
The Consumer Price Index for all items in Mountain Province for the month of March 2023 was 125.8 using 2018 as base year. This was 1.0 index points lower compared to its preceding month with a CPI of 126.8 and 9.6 index points higher compared to the same month of 2022 with 116.2 index points.
Table 1: Monthly CPI for All Income Households by Commodity Group,
Mountain Province: March 2023
(2018 = 100)
| Commodity Group | March 2022 | February 2023 | March 2023 |
| All Items | 116.2 | 126.8 | 125.8 |
| Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages | 110.8 | 123.8 | 122.7 |
| Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco | 155.6 | 163.9 | 167.7 |
| Clothing and Footwear | 113.6 | 118.4 | 118.5 |
| Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other Fuels | 128.1 | 140.7 | 138.2 |
| Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Maintenance | 122.4 | 130.0 | 130.0 |
| Health | 108.8 | 105.3 | 105.2 |
| Transport | 119.7 | 131.0 | 128.6 |
| Information and Communication | 99.5 | 98.8 | 99.8 |
| Recreation, Sport and Culture | 104.9 | 108.7 | 109.4 |
| Education Services | 105.3 | 104.8 | 104.8 |
| Restaurant and Accommodation Services | 139.1 | 157.6 | 158.4 |
| Financial Services | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
| Personal Care, Miscellaneous Goods and Services | 114.1 | 115.9 | 115.0 |
Commodity Group “Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco” Tops the Index
Among the different major commodity groups in the province, Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco had the highest value with a consumer price index of 167.7 for the month of March 2023.
Among its subgroups, tobacco continued to have the highest price index with 220.6 while other vegetable-based tobacco products had a price index of 156.5.
Figure 1: Consumer Price Index for All Income Households
Mountain Province: March 2023
(2018 = 100)
Restaurants and Accommodation Services ranked second with an index point of 158.4. Food and Beverage Serving Services had the highest index points with 164.8 among its subgroups followed by Accommodation Services with 133.7 index points. Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels ranked third with an index point of
138.2. Among its subgroups, electricity, gas and other fuels had the highest index point of 155.1 followed by actual rentals for housing with an index point of 126.9. Information and Communication incurred the lowest CPI in the province during the month with an index point of 99.8 while Financial Services showed no changes in its
index points.
CPI for All Items Shows a down Trend
Figure 2 shows the CPI for All Items in the province for the month of February and March 2023. The indices for All Items showed a decrease from February 2023 to
March 2023 with index points 126.8 and 125.8 respectively.
Among the different commodity groups, housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels decreased by 2.5 points followed by transport with index point of 2.4 while alcoholic beverages and tobacco increased by 3.8 index points, respectively.
Figure 2: Consumer Price Index by Commodity Group,
Mountain Province: February 2023 and March 2023
(2018 = 100)
While most of the indices of the different commodity groups decreased from February 2023 to March 2023, four groups showed no changes. This only means that the CPI for these 4 groups in February 2023 was the same in March this year.
Furnishing, household equipment and routine household maintenance; information and communication; education services; and financial services did not show any changes in terms of index points.
Inflation Rate by Month
Inflation rate in Mountain Province started to decrease to 8.3 percent in March 2023 from 10.1 percent in February 2023. The January 2023 inflation rate was the same from the recorded inflation rate in the province in December 2022. In March 2022, inflation was lower at 4.0 percent.
The deceleration in the inflation rate in March 2023 was primarily due to the lower annual growths in the housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels at 7.9 percent; food and non-alcoholic beverages at 10.7 percent, and transport at 7.4 percent.
The following commodities also contributed to the down trend of the inflation rate for the said month:
a. Personal care, and miscellaneous and service, 0.8 percent;
b. Clothing and footwear, 4.3 and
c. Furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance at 6.2 percent.
Figure 3: Inflation Rate,
Mountain Province: March 2022 - March 2023
(2018 = 100)
Meanwhile, alcoholic beverages and tobacco and recreation, sport and culture showed an increase in their annual growth with 7.8 and 4.3 percent respectively. The rest of the commodity groups changed but at a minimal rate.
Purchasing Power of Peso (PPP) Slides
The Purchasing Power of the Peso (PPP) in the province for the month of March 2023 remained at 0.79 from its preceding months and decreased by 7 centavos compared to the same month of the previous year. Thus, a hundred peso in 2018 is worth 79 pesos for the month of March 2023. (Figure 4)
Figure 4: Purchasing Power of Peso,
Mountain Province: March 2022 – March 2023
(2018 = 100)
Technical Notes
Consumer Price Index (CPI) a single number used to measure changes in the average retail prices of a market basket or collection of goods and services commonly purchased by an average, prices of goods and services have increased or decreased from a particular reference period known as base year.
The CPI measures the changes in the price level of goods and services that most people buy for their day-to-day consumption relative to a base year (current at year 208)
It is widely used in the calculation of the inflation rate and purchasing power of peso. Changes in the CPI over a specified period of time (usually a month or a year), is the rate of inflation, Inflation is equivalent to a decline in the purchasing of peso (PPP).
The Purchasing Power of Peso (PPP) gives an indication of the real value of the peso (how much it is worth) in a given period relative to its value in a base period. Or it measures how much the peso in the reference year is worth in another year.
Inflation Rate (IR) is the rate of change in the average price level between two periods (year-on year/month-on-month as measured by the CPI).
Base Year (BY) is the reference point of the index number series, at which the index number is set to zero.
Market Basket (MB) is a sample of goods and services used to represent all goods and services produced or bought.
The monthly Consumers Price Index is computed based on the average retail prices of goods and services collected during the first week and mid-month of the reference month.
Retail Price - the actual price at which retailers sell a commodity on spot or earliest delivery, usually in small quantities for consumption and not for resale. It is confined to transactions on cash basis in the free market and excludes black-market prices and prices of commodities that are on sale as in summer sales, anniversary sales, Christmas sales, etc.
JERRY G. SANTOS
Chief Statistical Specialist
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Press-Release-on-CPI-March-2023.pdf |
790.17 KB |