The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) will stop the online posting of 98 “non-BSP produced data” on its website starting on Sept. 1 as it now seems to prefer to publish its own data and not those from other government agencies.
The BSP website is considered one of the most comprehensive government-run website in the Philippines. Besides BSP-produced data, it publishes the following: external sector statistics such as those from the International Monetary Fund; monetary and financial statistics; and leading indicators such as Bureau of Treasury data, energy sales, stock composite index and capitalization, and Philippine Statistics Authority numbers.
In an advisory this week, the BSP announced that it is discontinuing the publication of the 98 non-BSP data, namely the Philippine Dealing System foreign exchange transactions, producer price index, Philippines’ purchasing managers’ index, treasury bills/treasury bonds, trade indices, Philippine stock market transactions, among others.
The BSP said it will only publish BSP generated statistics “except for major indicators” such as the gross domestic product, consumer price index, inflation rates, and other data it did not name.
“Previously published selected non-BSP-produced statistics, such as those from other government agencies, will no longer be published on the BSP website. However, these may be accessed from the relevant government agencies’ or data owners’ websites,” said the BSP.
The primary BSP mandate as an inflation-targeting central bank is to maintain price stability which means to keep a low and stable inflation rate at all times.
The BSP also conducts financial system surveillance and the supervision of the banking and non-banking sectors.
One of the announced data that comes from the BSP on a monthly basis is its month-ahead inflation forecasts.
The BSP said it has put in a lot of effort on enhancing its model development and capacity building for forecasting and policy analysis. It noted that the Department of Economic Research (DER) has constantly refined its models to “better guide monetary policy analysis and formulation” through multi-year technical assistance projects with the IMF’s Institute for Capacity Development (ICD) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
In fact for this year, the DER has ongoing technical assistance with the IMF to improve the Policy Analysis Model for the Philippines (PAMPh) as well as to undertake various projects, such as the nowcasting of selected macroeconomic variables, to support the scheduled transition to the PAMPh as the BSP’s workhorse model, said the BSP.
In assessing its batting average when it comes to correctly forecasting inflation, the BSP admitted it had made more forecasting errors in 2023 compared to its 2022 performance, citing increased price volatility last year as culprit.
The BSP included in its assessment the examination of the month-ahead inflation forecasts, annual inflation forecasts and the standard statistics for “forecast accuracy, unbiasedness, efficiency, and benchmarking.”
In terms of the month-ahead inflation forecasts, the BSP said its 2023 projections have “slightly” higher forecast errors than in 2022 and the historical average despite that generally, it said monthly inflation did settle within the BSP forecast range except for January and October.
As for the annual inflation forecasts, the BSP forecast range was three percent to six percent in 2023 with the final CPI averaging at six percent by the end of last year.
In terms of accuracy, the BSP said its inflation forecasts “have a statistically adequate level of precision with lower forecast errors compared to benchmark statistical models over the sample period.”
The BSP first adopted the inflation targetting framework in 2002.
Under this framework, the government upon the guidance of the BSP has an annual headline inflation target range of two percent to four percent for 2004 until 2008.