By
Researcher
INFLATION eased in March after five straight months of acceleration, as food prices increased at a slower pace, the government’s statistical agency reported on Tuesday.
Preliminary data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed headline inflation at 4.5% in March, slowing from the year-on-year rate of 4.7% in February. However, this was still above the 2.5% recorded in March last year.
The latest headline figure is lower than the 4.8% median in a
BusinessWorld poll conducted late last week and falls within the 4.2%-5% estimate given by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) for March.
Year-to-date inflation settled at 4.5%, beyond the BSP’s 2-4% target this year and above the forecast of 4.2% for the entire year.
March 15, 2021 | 12:01 am Font Size
YIELD TRACKER
BETS OF faster inflation in the near term as food costs continued to increase pushed yields on government securities (GS) to soar last week.
GS yields, which move opposite to prices, went up across the board last week, increasing by an average of 29.99 basis points (bps) week on week, based on the PHP Bloomberg Valuation Service Reference Rates as of March 12 published on the Philippine Dealing Systemâs website.
Yields on the 91-, 182- and 364-day Treasury bills rose by 15.63 bps, 14.63 bps, and 17.06 bps, respectively, to 1.2379%, 1.3413%, and 1.854% on Friday from their week-ago levels.
At the belly, the rates of two-, three-, four-, five-, and seven-year Treasury bonds (T-bonds) jumped by 28.24 bps, 39.03 bps, 43.79 bps, 44.78 bps, and 39.66 bps, respectively, to 2.4674%, 2.8768%, 3.1865%, 3.4489%, and 3.8755%.
Researcher
AROUND four million Filipinos remain jobless in January, as more reentered the labor force with the further easing of quarantine restrictions around the country, government labor data released on Tuesday showed.
Preliminary results of Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) January 2021 round of the Labor Force Survey (LFS) showed around 3.953 million unemployed Filipinos, up from 3.813 million in October 2020 and 2.391 million in January 2020.
This put the unemployment rate at 8.7% in January, unchanged from October 2020 but higher than 5.3% in January 2020. The January 2021 reading was the highest among January LFS rounds since the government adopted new definitions for the survey in 2005.
The quality of jobs also weakened as the underemployment rate the proportion of those already working, but still looking for more work or longer working hours worsened to 16% from 14.4% in October and 14.8% in January 2020. This translates to 6.589 million underemployed Filip
January 29, 2021 | 12:34 am Advertisement
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Gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 9.5% in 2020, the worst ever in Philippine history. PHILIPPINE STAR/MICHAEL VARCAS
By
Reporter
THE PHILIPPINE ECONOMY suffered its worst annual contraction on record in 2020, even after gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by a slower pace in the fourth quarter, the statistics agency said on Thursday.
Preliminary Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data showed the country’s GDP contracted by 8.3% in the fourth quarter, a reversal of the 6.7% growth in the fourth quarter of 2019. However, this was better than the revised -11.4% in the third quarter and the record -16.9% in the second quarter.
Reporter
THE National Government’s budget deficit ballooned to 7.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) last year from 3.4% in 2019, but slightly below the cap set by the economic team, as spending increased and revenues slumped amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
In a speech at the virtual meeting of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) on Tuesday, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said preliminary data showed last year’s budget deficit reached P1.36 trillion or equivalent to 7.5% of GDP, more than double the 3.4% deficit-to-GDP ratio in 2019.
Last year’s fiscal gap surged to a fresh all-time high, or twice as much as the previous record of P660 billion in 2019.