CAMIGUIN (PIA)--The Province of Camiguin registered a record high inflation rate of 8.5 percent, 1.1 percentage points higher than the 7.4 percent posted in September 2022. 

This is the highest inflation rate the province had recorded thus far, and bringing the average inflation rate from January to October 2022 to 6.2 percent. 

This inflation rate was also higher by 4.8 percentage points compared with the registered rate of 3.7 percent in October 2021.

Across the northern Mindanao region, Camiguin had the highest annual inflation rate in October 2022. While Misamis Occidental recorded a decreased inflation rate of 6.8 percent in October 2022 (0.4 percentage points lower from 7.2 percent in September 2022), three other provinces in the region recorded an increased inflation rate in October 2022. 

Misamis Oriental registered a rate of 7.6 percent, higher by 0.4 percentage points than the previously reported rate of 7.2 percent in September 2022. Bukidnon recorded a rate of 7.0 percent in October, a 0.4 percentage point increase over the 6.6 percent rate in September 2022.

Also, Lanao del Norte had an increase of 0.2 percentage points in October 2022, recording a 5.5 percent inflation rate from 5.3 percent in September 2022.

Moreover, the region's inflation rate accelerated further to 7.2 percent in October 2022, registering a 0.6 percentage point increase over the rate recorded in September 2022. 

This was the sixth consecutive increase in the last nine months of 2022. This was 0.8 percentage points higher than the previous month, bringing the average inflation rate for 2022 to 5.4 percent.

The accelerated inflation rate in October 2022 was primarily driven by the increases in the following indices: food and non-alcoholic beverages (10.8%), alcoholic beverages and tobacco (9.6%), clothing and footwear (5.1%), furnishings, household equipment, and routine maintenance of the house (2.7%), transport (12.8%), and restaurants and accommodation services (17.5%).

On the contrary, increases slowed down in the indices of housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels (4.4%), health (2.8%), information and communication (0.1%), recreation, sports, and culture (5.3%), and personal care, and miscellaneous goods and services (5.6%).

The education services index, meanwhile, had retained its previous month’s rate of 1.3 percent, and the financial services index recorded zero percent annual growth during the month of October 2022

The heavily weighted food group indices went up by 2.4 percentage points as it recorded 10.9 percent annual inflation rate in October 2022 from 8.5 percent in September 2022.

The increase was primarily influenced by the annual growths of the indices of cereals (3.0%), rice (3.0%), flour, bread and other bakery products, pasta products and other cereals (9.7%), meat and other parts of slaughtered land animals (10.8%), fish and other seafood (10.8%), milk, other dairy products, and eggs (32.9%), vegetables, tubers, cooking bananas and pulses (11.8%), and sugar, confectionery and desserts (37.8%).

Meanwhile, annual increases slowed down in the indices of oils and fats (11.8%), fruits and nuts (11.2%), and ready-made food and other food products not elsewhere classified (5.1%). (PSA Camiguin/PIA-10/Camiguin)