GENERAL SANTOS CITY (PIA) -- “The headline inflation or the annual rate of change on the prices of goods and services in the market basket in General Santos City remained at 6.9% in January 2023,” Ismael B. Ramos Jr., Chief Statistical Officer of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) - Gensan, disclosed during a press conference, Wedensday at East Asia Royale Hotel here.

Ramos said the inflation rate last month was the same with the 6.9% in December 2022, but 0.5% higher than the 6.4% in the January 2022 result.

He, however, clarified that Gensan posted a lower inflation rate compared to the Region’s 7.4% and the National inflation rate of 8.7% for January 2023.

In his presentation, Ramos explained that the main contributors to the City’s latest inflation rate were food and non-alcoholic beverages with 55.2 percentage shares; transport with 17.7 percentage shares; and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels with 10.1 percentage shares.

Food inflation, he said, “continued to rise from 9.6 percent in December 2022 to 9.7 percent in January 2023. Vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses further accelerated with 28.5 percent inflation from 23.3 percent.”

“Flour, bread and other bakery products, pasta products and other cereals remained at 15.4 percent inflation. Meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals with slower inflation of 7.2 percent from 8.9 percent and sugar confectionery and desserts with 33.9 percent inflation from 36.2 percent,” he added.

Meanwhile, Dennis Fel T. Matutina, Acting Assistant Department Head of the City Planning and Development Office (CPDO) of LGU-Gensan gave his insights on the inflation rates in the city.

He noted that expenditures on Personal Care and Miscellaneous Goods and Services peak up in January while demand for restaurants and cafes went down in the same month.

“Inflation seems to peak in the months of October to February every year and dips on the 2nd Quarter...gradually increasing again on the 3rd Quarter of the year,” he said.

Matutina joked that people are may be spending for beauty cares every January in preparation for the love month, then saves in March and April for the Bohol fiesta in May.

He also explained that the increase in prices of fish and other seafoods was evident in December until January, and just tapered off.  The Bula fiesta celebration, he said, could be a factor for this.

“Gensan's 6.9% inflation rate is better than that of the Region and Sarangani and the national average. This seems to point out that relatively, the cost of living in GenSan is still low compared to most other places in the country,” Matutina said. (PGFruylan/PIA-Gensan)