There are two important economic indicators I will mention in today’s column. Both are “hot” since these were released just a few days ago by the National Statistics Office (NSO). The first one is the inflation rate and the other one is unemployment.

Both point to a better economic situation, comparing June 2006 and June 2005 figures.

Inflation, which refers to the rise in prices reached 6.4 percent in June 2006, slightly lower than the 6.5 percent recorded in June 2005.

Unemployment went down dramatically from 9.17 percent to 4.4 percent. Conversely, the employment rate went up from 90.82 percent to 95.6 percent.

The figures do not show which sector had an upsurge in employment but most probably it is in agriculture since industry and services did not seem to expand a lot in recent months.

With more people employed and with inflation in check, it is clear that we are off to a good start in 2006.

With employment come increases in family incomes. If inflation has remained steady even when there has been an increase in income then this shows that the production of food items has kept inflation under control, despite the rising cost of fuel experienced from January to June this year.

Regions which largely buy their food items produced in other regions will experience higher inflation rates. Thus, the National Capital Region (or Metro Manila) had an inflation rate of 7.4 percent.

Such figures make us proud of the people who till our lands and fish in the seas surrounding our provinces.

In this sense, investment in agriculture, both from the government implementing agencies and private entrepreneurs really makes sense. While we should not forget other sectors like small and medium scale industries, agriculture is essentially the mainstay of our economy and will continue do so

The two indicators indirectly point to such a conclusion.