Central Visayas: Inflation rate eases in March 2025
A consumer purchases an item in a store in Carbon Public Market in Cebu City. | CDN Digital File Photo [Niña Mae Oliverio]
For March 2025, it has decelerated to 2.4 percent from 2.5 percent in February, according to Engineer Felixberto Sato Jr., supervising statistical specialist of PSA-7.
Moreover, it also recorded a significant decrease if compared to last year’s inflation rate which was 3.2 percent for March 2024, Sato added, based on the data released by PSA-7 on April 10.
READ: Inflation drops to 1.8% in March
The main source of deceleration was attributed to the slower annual increase in the prices of transport commodity group at 2.6 percent inflation rate in March from 3.8 percent in February 2025, it contributed about 91.8 percent in Region 7’s inflation, Sato said.
Sato noted that inflation rate for gasoline dropped to -7.9 percent in March from -5.2 in February, and passenger transport by sea dropped to 54.2 percent in March from 69.7 percent in February, attributing to the prices of fares.
“There is a slower annual increase on the transport. Ni-increase siya pero slower na lang, hinay,” Sato explained.
(There is a slower annual increase on the transport. It increased but it was slower, slow.)
Region 7’s inflation rate ranked 15th among the 17 regions in the country.
READ: How does inflation impact local traders?
Sato added that the inflation rate of each region varies, there are some that recorded lower than the national level, and there are also regions that recorded higher.
But he said that this was because each region had its market basket or the goods and services commonly purchased by the residents per province.
The Philippines’ headline inflation rate for March also slowed down from 2.1 percent to 1.8 percent, lowest recorded in the past five years, according to lawyer Claire Castro, undersecretary of the Presidential Communications Office, during a press briefing at the Malacañang Palace on April 7.
READ: Two more rate cuts likely this year
The decline of the national inflation rate was attributed to the slower increase of the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages.
The inflation rate was within the forecast of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) for March which was projected to settle between 1.7 and 2.5 percent.
Inflation refers to the rate at which prices increases over a given period.
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