CHIU
A BUSINESS leader is calling on government to focus its attention on proper management of resources to address inflation concerns.
Antonio Chiu, Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) president, said this in an interview on Wednesday amid the lower inflation rate in November.
“Inflation is going down. Yes. But the problem is not completely solved,” Chiu said.
“The government has every chance now to correct whatever error there was before. There were issues on mismanagement before,” he said.
Inflation eased to a four-month low of 6 percent in November as average consumer prices that month declined compared to prices last October.
National Statistician Lisa Grace Bersales told a press conference Wednesday that the month-on-month inflation rate declined by 0.3 percent, the first time that prices dropped compared to the previous month since February 2016.
In February 2016, the month-on-month inflation decline was 0.2 percent.
Year-on-year inflation in November was the lowest since the 5.7-percent print last July.
However, headline inflation during the first 11 months averaged 5.2 percent, remaining above the government’s target range of 2-4 percent.
Chiu said that November’s lower inflation rate could be credited to two major reasons — lower global price of oil and a more stable food supply.
He also said that both these factors were purely circumstantial and that the inflation problem had not been completely solved yet.
Chiu said that the global price of oil beyond the government’s control.
The country was just lucky, he said, that the price of oil had been currently at a downtrend following several weeks of continued increases.
As for food, specifically rice, he said that more supply had already been coming into the market which had helped bring down the price of rice.
But these are not because of government’s efforts.
“Prices of rice came down not because of what the government did. It came down because November is peak harvest season of rice,” he said./with Inquirer report