Price Index Adjustmenst for Food Beverage and Tobacco and non FBT Items October 2009

# CPI of Food, Beverages and Tobacco (FBT): National Capital Region (NCR) and Areas Outside the National Capital Region (AONCR)

The seasonally adjusted CPI of FBT items in NCR and AONCR correspondingly accelerated to 156.5 and 165.2 in October from their respective September levels of 152.8 and 163.6.

While the country was still reeling from the effects of typhoon “Ondoy” in September, seasonal factors such as the heavy downpours caused by another tropical storm “Pepeng” hit northern Luzon during the early part of October. The heavy rains triggered landslides and road cuts thereby limiting the volume of vegetable deliveries in the NCR markets. This resulted to upward price adjustments of vegetables during the month. Higher prices of fruits not in season were also observed. In addition, prices of fish were on the uptrend as its supply in the markets was affected by the difficulty in catching fish species due to unfavorable weather conditions. These seasonal factors pushed up prices of FBT items in NCR. However, these seasonal factors did not affect the overall prices of FBT items in AONCR relative to the expected trend. Read more of this.