The country's inflation rate rose in March 2024 to 3.7%, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Based on PSA's latest report released Friday, April 5, the 3.7% current inflation rate is way higher than the 3.4% inflation rate from February but lower than the 7.6% recorded in March 2023.
PSA said the increase was a result of a rapid increase in the price of food and non-alcoholic beverages (from 4.6% in February to 5.7% in March); transport (from 1.2% to 2.1%); and restaurants and accommodation services (from 5.3% to 5.6%).
Meanwhile, the biggest contributor to the March inflation rate was food inflation, which increased to 5.7% from 4.8% in February.
PSA said food inflation was caused by the high price of vegetables and meat, while inflation in cereal products, which includes rice, corn, flour, and others, increased to 17.3%.
Despite this, the inflation rate in March was still within the government's range of 2 to 4%, which means that the inflation rate has risen for the second month since being on a downtrend for four straight months.
