Government losing control of economy – IBON
Government losing control of economy – IBON
The Duterte administration is losing control over the Philippine economy and the poorest Filipinos are suffering for this, research group IBON said upon the release of the August inflation rate. The greatly accelerating inflation is only the latest in a series of bad economic news about the economy’s so-called fundamentals.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the headline inflation rate in August 2018 accelerated to 6.4% or its highest in almost a decade from 5.7% in July. This is more than double the 2.6% inflation in August 2017.
Inflation was highest in alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics at 21.6% year-on-year but inflation also worsened among food and non-alcoholic beverages, especially vegetables (19.2%), corn (12.6%), and fish (12.4%). Meanwhile, from July to August 2018, steepest inflation occurred in vegetables (4.9%) and rice (2.1%).
IBON said that the rapid rise in food prices hits poor families the worst because food takes up a greater portion of their expenditure compared to higher income families. The bottom 30% income group spends 59.7% of their expenditures on food, compared to just 30% for the upper 70% income group based on the 2015 Family Income and Expenditure Survey.
Comments (0)