BSP policy settings still appropriate as inflation steady at 3.4%

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Friday said policy settings in the country remains appropriate as inflation still within the central bank’s expectations. (Photo: Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas/Facebook)

MANILA—The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Friday said policy settings in the country remains appropriate as inflation still within the central bank’s expectations.

On Friday, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported the 3.4 percent inflation rate in the Philippines in April 2017, same as the March 2017 level but higher than year-ago’s 1.1 percent.

This brought the average inflation in the first four months of the year to 3.2 percent, slightly above the middle of the central bank’s two to four percent target band for 2017 until 2020.

Core inflation, which excludes volatile items namely food and oil, rose to three percent last April from the previous month’s 2.9 percent, resulting an average of 2.8 percent to date.

BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr., in a text message to reporters, said the inflation rate last April was within the central bank’s three to 3.8 percent forecast range.

He said these “numbers confirm the manageable inflation outlook for the year.”

“At the moment, we deem the policy settings to be appropriate, but we continue to monitor changes in commodity prices, particularly petroleum products as well as petitions for utility rate increases, which we see are possible risk factors to our baseline scenario,” he added.

The BSP’s policy-making Monetary Board (MB) will have its third rate setting meet for the year on May 11 and economists expect the board to keep rates steady next week.