Philippines raises rate for first time since 2018

A man sleeps under a backhoe along the streets of Divisoria, a local shopping district in Manila, on Tuesday. (Photo: AFP)

The Philippine central bank raised its key interest rate for the first time since 2018 to combat Southeast Asia’s second-fastest inflation.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas increased the benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 2.25%, it said in a statement on Thursday, as forecast by 14 of 21 economists in a Bloomberg survey. The rest forecast no change.