La Union’s headline inflation rate accelerated to 4.4 percent in April 2022 from 3.0 percent in the previous month. This brings the average inflation from January to April at 2.6 percent. Inflation in April a year ago was lower at 2.2 percent. (Table 1)

The uptrend in the overall inflation in April 2022 was brought about by the increase in the inflation of the heavily-weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages index at 3.9 percent; transport at 16.7 percent; and clothing and footwear at 0.6 percent.

Meanwhile, slowdowns were observed in the annual inflation in the indices of alcoholic beverages and tobacco at 3.9 percent; housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels at 6.3 percent; health at 1.8 percent; recreation, sport and culture at 4.3 percent; financial services at 0.0 percent; and personal care, and miscellaneous goods and services at 1.0 percent. The rest of the commodity groups retained their previous month’s inflation rates.

Food inflation in La Union moved up at a faster pace of 4.1 percent in April 2022 from 1.1 percent in March 2022. Annual inflation was higher in the indices of meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals at 4.0 percent; fish and other seafood at 8.9 percent; oils and fats at 7.5 percent; vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses at 16.8 percent; and sugar, confectionery and desserts at 10.4 percent.

On the contrary, inflation for cereals and cereal products decelerated to 2.0 percent; milk, other dairy products and eggs to -2.1 percent; fruits and nuts to -6.8 percent; and ready-made food and other food products not elsewhere classified at -0.5 percent during the month.

DANITES E. TEÑIDO, Ph.D.
Chief Statistical Specialist

/MAQ/KJGH