TACLOBAN CITY — The Philippine Statistics Authority announced on Monday that the inflation rate in Eastern Visayas slowed in August after five months of acceleration.

PSA Eastern Visayas regional director Wilma Pirante said that the slowdown in the regional inflation rate in August 2022 was primarily due to the lower annual increase recorded in the index for food and non-alcoholic beverages at 7.5 percent, from 8.0 percent in the previous month.

Contributing largely to the IR slow down are fish and other seafood, vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas, pulses and rice.

Of the six provinces, only the provinces of Biliran, Eastern Samar, and Samar recorded an increase in inflation rates in August 2022 at 7.9, 7.2, and 6.8, respectively.

Provinces with decreased IRs are Leyte (6.7), Northern Samar (9.3), and Southern Leyte (9.6).

Tacloban, the lone highly urbanized city in the region, recorded an inflation of 4.2 percent in August 2022, lower than its 5.2 percent last July.

The PSA came up with the data by establishing baseline information for the prices of the items in the base year — which is 2018 — and monitoring the prices of the items on a regular basis.