MANILA (Reuters): The Philippines’ annual inflation rate was likely to be within a 2.3% to 3.1% range in December, with full-year inflation averaging 3.2%, the central bank has announced.

The central bank said it “will continue to monitor developments affecting the outlook for inflation and growth in line with its data-dependent approach to monetary policy decision-making”.

The Philippines’ statistics agency will release inflation data early in January.

Meanwhile, the Philippine government posted a 213 billion pesos ($3.67 billion) budget deficit in November, the Bureau of the Treasury said on Friday.

It brought the January to November budget deficit to 1.18 trillion pesos, wider than the 1.11 trillion gap in the same period last year.

The budget balance remains well within the target, representing 79.3% of the 1.5 trillion pesos full-year programme, the treasury agency said in a statement.

($1 = 57.9850 Philippine pesos). – Reuters