Philippines June inflation rises slightly, remains well below market consensus

Consumer prices in the Philippines slightly rose during the month of June, remaining well below what the markets had earlier expected

The country’s core consumer price index, which does not include food or energy prices, virtually rose with year-on-year growth of 1.9 percent, up a mere 0.01 percentage points from June and undershooting a consensus forecast of 2.1 percent growth from economists.

The country’s headline CPI came in with growth of 1.9 percent for the period as well, unchanged from the previous month. In month-on-month terms, prices eased more visibly, with growth falling to 0.1 percent from 0.42 percent in June.

Meanwhile, both headline and core CPI now appear somewhat more stable after a bumpy recovery in the wake of bottoming out last year, and are almost in line with the central bank’s target range for inflation, the bottom limit for which is 2 percent, reports said.