Moody’s Analytics sees March inflation at 8.4%

Moody’s Analytics expects domestic inflation rate to have slowed to 8.4 percent last March from 8.6 percent in February partly on the decline of global oil prices and recovery of crop harvests.

Moody’s Analytics economist Sarah Tan told the Philippine News Agency (PNA) that while the drop in oil prices and improvement in supply of some agricultural products have improved relative to the situation last year, “prices of key food items and utility bills are keeping inflation hot.”

“The almost twofold year-on- year increase in prices of red onions, a staple in Filipino cuisine, are getting households tearyeyed. Further, households are starting to bear the brunt of higher electricity rates with the one of the country’s main utilities, Meralco (Manila Electric Company), hiking their tariffs in March,” she said.

The deceleration of infla- tion rate is expected to boost the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) policy rate setting.

Tan said “should the inflation readings reflect a consistent downward path, and one that is sizeable, that could give the BSP confidence to pause their rate hike rally.”

“Otherwise, we should expect the BSP to pull harder on the brakes until the inflation train is unambiguously slowing,” she added.

Last March, BSP’s policy-making Monetary Board (MB) hiked the central bank’s key rates by 25