{"id":150805,"date":"2018-02-02T20:29:18","date_gmt":"2018-02-03T01:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=150805"},"modified":"2018-02-02T20:29:18","modified_gmt":"2018-02-03T01:29:18","slug":"economist-bsps-january-18-forecast-may-worry-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/02\/02\/economist-bsps-january-18-forecast-may-worry-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Economist: BSP\u2019s January \u201818 forecast may worry market"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Facade<\/a>
Facade of Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas \/ Wikipedia Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u2014 An economist of ING Bank Manila said the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas\u2019 (BSP) inflation forecast for January 2018, at 3.5 to 4 percent, may concern the market since the upper end is already higher than the central bank\u2019s 3.2 percent average projection for the year.<\/p>\n

In a research note, ING Bank Manila senior economist Joey Cuyegkeng said the central bank \u201csurprised\u201d market participants with the inflation range forecast, citing that ING\u2019s projection for the month is lower at 3.4 percent.<\/p>\n

The forecast range for the first month this year is higher than the 3.3 percent December 2017 level and the full-year average of 3.2 percent, which in turn is within the 2017-19 target.<\/p>\n

The central bank, in a statement, traced the higher level of inflation forecast for January to increases in fuel prices overseas that impact on the domestic oil prices.<\/p>\n

Relatively, the first package of Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN), which cuts workers\u2019 income tax rates and makes their PHP250,000 annual income tax-free but hikes excise taxes on fuel and sweetened beverages, among others, took effect last January 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect a moderate impact of higher excise taxes from the tax reform package in the first month of implementation,\u201d Cuyegkeng said.<\/p>\n

However, the economist said that with the BSP\u2019s higher inflation forecast for the first month this year \u201cthe market may become worried that inflation will accelerate faster than expected in the coming months.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said that \u201csecond round effects are still to be determined in March-June.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSignificant second-round effects could cause inflation to breach the target range of 2 to 4 percent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is scheduled to report the January 2018 inflation rate on Tuesday and Cuyegkeng said that if the level is within the central bank\u2019s projection it \u201ccould raise inflation expectations which may spur BSP to tighten as early as the March meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur base case is for a rate hike at the May meeting,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u2014 An economist of ING Bank Manila said the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas\u2019 (BSP) inflation forecast for January 2018, at …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":13937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482],"tags":[20472,45651,45652],"class_list":["post-150805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","tag-bangko-sentral-ng-pilipinas-bsp","tag-economist-of-ing-bank-manila","tag-inflation-forecast-for-january-2018","mauthors-joann-villanueva","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}