BSP: Poll forecasts 5.3% inflation

crude as of end‐September 2018 showed a higher path for 2018‐2022 compared to forecasts made during the previous quarter.

The Train law, which took effect on January 1, raised excise taxes on fuel and cars, among others, in exchange for lower personal income tax rates. The government plans to use the revenues raised for its centerpiece “Build Build Build” infastructure program.

The peso, meanwhile, has fallen to near 13-year lows in the P54:$ 1 level and is often described as Asia’s worstperforming currency this year.

What could keep inflation down, the Bangko Sentral said, are “fiscal policy actions or mitigating measures such as the rice tariffication, Pantawid Pasada program and unconditional cash transfers, the recent and expectations of further policy rate hikes by the BSP and slower global growth.”

Monetary authorities have raised key interest rates by a total of 150 basis points beginning May as inflation exceeded the 2.0-4.0 target, hitting a new nine-year high of 6.7 percent in September.

Trade tensions between the world’s biggest economies, particularly the United States and China, have prompted the International Monetary Fund to cut its global growth forecasts for this year and the next.