Storage infrastructure, especially cold storage facilities, is crucial in stabilizing food prices and helps ensure food security, the Department of Finance (DOF) said yesterday.
In its latest economic bulletin, the DOF said while the continued deceleration in headline inflation is a welcome development, the economy has to remain watchful.
“Whereas transportation infrastructure geographically links farms and markets, storage smoothens consumption across time and between seasons,” the DOF said.
“Once passed, the Warehouse Receipts Bill will usher in the professionalization of the warehousing sector and contribute to food security,” it added.
The country’s headline inflation rate decelerated to 3.04 percent in the first month of the year, further slowing down from 3.17 percent in December of the prior year.
While food price inflation held steady, non-food price inflation eased.
The DOF pointed out that month-on-month, the general price level increased by nearly 1 percent, up from the 0.36 percent rise the prior month due to both food and non-food items.
The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) earlier said the government continues to strengthen its policies to support the livestock industry and reduce food prices.
“While we move for the extension of Executive Order Nos. 133 and 134 to increase local supply and ensure regular unloading of stocks, we also call for the timely passage of the proposed Livestock Development and Competitiveness (LDC) Bill to boost the productivity of the livestock sector and value chain,” Karl Kendrick Chua, socioeconomic planning secretary, said in a statement earlier this month.
Among the major provisions of the LDC Bill is the updating of the corn industry roadmap, along with establishing “competitiveness enhancement funds” for the components of the livestock value chain.
This can cover corn farmers. As corn is used as animal feeds for livestock, poultry and fish, this can also help address fish inflation, which remains elevated at 6.2 percent in January, NEDA said.
“We are taking a more proactive approach in promoting the development and competitiveness of corn. We are doing this to help ease prices of sources of protein such as meat and fish, which are still among the top drivers of our country’s overall inflation,” Chua said. – Angela Celis
