A year ago, inflation was 3.6 percent. The December inflation was well within the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) projection of between four and 4.9 percent.
For the full year, inflation averaged 4.8 percent within the government's target of three to five percent. The NSO attributed the lower inflation rate to the reductions in the prices of the heavily weighted food items such as rice, cooking oil, vegetables and sugar in Metro Manila and in many regions outside Metro Manila.
"The general downward adjustments in the prices of gasoline and diesel nationwide along with the decreases in the charges for electricity rates in NCR also contributed to the overall decline in the month-on month inflation rate," NSO said.
The NSO added that slower annual inflation rate was observed in the food alone index in the Philippines at 4.2 percent in December from 4.8 percent in November. Except for the corn and milk, cheese and egg indexes whose annual increments were correspondingly higher at 15 percent and 3.1 percent from their respective last month's rates of 14.0 percent and three percent.