Philippine Inflation Accelerates More Than Forecast

(RTTNews) - Philippine inflation accelerated more than expected in September on higher food and energy prices, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed Tuesday.

Consumer price inflation rose to 7.2 percent from 6.1 percent in August. A similar higher rate was last seen in April and the rate was larger than forecast of 6.6 percent.

Headline inflation in September was within the forecast range of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas of 6.4 percent to 7.4 percent for the month.

The increase in annual inflation was largely driven by food and non-alcoholic beverages, which grew 6.7 percent. Housing and utility charges and transport costs also contributed to the uptrend.

Core inflation that excludes food and energy prices advanced to 4.7 percent from 4.1 percent in August. In the same period last year, core inflation was 2.6 percent.

Month-on-month, consumer prices moved up 1.0 percent, faster than economists' forecast of 0.6 percent.

In August, the central bank raised its interest rates for the third consecutive meeting citing risks to inflation. The BSP lifted the key reverse repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 5.00 percent.