ECONOMISTS forecast inflation to be a little bit higher in September this year, as some effects of the El Niño are starting to kick in.
In separate responses to the BusinessMirror’s queries, local banking giant Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) economist Nicholas Antonio Mapa, British multinational bank Standard Chartered economist Jeff Ng and University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) economist Victor Abola are of the consensus that September inflation will slightly rise after six consecutive months of decline.
Their forecasts, however, all do not exceed the 1-percent mark. The inflation of the country has been below 1 percent since July this year.
In particular, both the professor and the global bank economist forecast a 0.8-percent inflation rate for September this year, while BPI’s Mapa sees a smaller increment of 0.7 percent for the month. August’s inflation print was at 0.6 percent.
UA&P’s Abola explained that the expected rise in inflation toward the end of the year will “not be drastic,” and that average inflation will likely stay on the bottom end of the target range of the government, at 2 percent to 4 percent up until the first half of 2016.
Mapa, meanwhile, said that the rise in inflation in September will be brought about by the rise in heavily weighted food prices, but will be minimized owing to utilities and other sectors affected by the decrease in crude-oil prices, like fuel and transport.
“We may start to feel at least some of the heat from El Niño on the food basket, although the government seems to have been very prudent in front-loading its importation of foodstuff, which will mitigate this. Also, base effects are seen to kick in, given the higher base last year,” Mapa said.
Security Bank economist Patrick Ella, meanwhile, bucks the view, saying that inflation could have slowed down further to 0.42 percent in September.
Bangko Sentral Gov. Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said in late September that the growth of consumer prices may have expanded between 0.2 percent and 1 percent.
He also announced in the Monetary Board’s latest policy meeting that the central bank has lowered its forecast for the 2015 inflation average anew. Inflation in the country is now expected to average at 1.6 percent for this year—indicating that any increase in inflation for the year in the next months will be minimal.
The current inflation average of the country as of August this year is at 1.7 percent.
The Philippine Statistics Authority will announce the September inflation rate on Tuesday.