The Consumers Price Index (CPI) is an indicator or measure of prices changes. It is a fixed weighted average of price relatives and is computed using the Laspeyres price index formula. The current weighting pattern is based on the 2005 Household Expenditure Survey (HES), which was carried out in 2005/06. The HES information was used to select the 'basket', which is the commonly used term for the goods and services prices for the purpose of compiling the CPI.
Key Facts
Quarterly change
In the June 2020 quarter compared with March 2020 quarter, the consumer price index (CPI) was 0.17 percent with the Underlying CPI of 0.14 percent.
- Housing and Household Utilities group rose by 0.54 percent driven by increases in prices of Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels subgroup.
- Communication group prices rose 0.53 percent driven by costs in telephone equipments.
- Food prices rose 0.30 percent, influenced by increasing prices of meat (up 1.42 percent), vegetables (up 0.17 percent), bread and cereals (up 0.16 percent).
- All these increases were offset by the fall in the Recreation and Culture group (0.97 percent) with cheaper audio and computer equipment.
Annual change
From the June 2019 quarter to the June 2020 quarter, the CPI inflation rate was 0.72 percent with the Underlying CPI of 1.47 percent.
- Clothing and Footwear rose by 5.32 percent, with contribution from footwear 7.22 percent and Clothing 4.68 percent.
- Household contents and maintenance increased 3.70 percent, with increase in prices for routine household maintenace.
- Food prices increased 1.62 percent
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Information about CPI
The Consumer Price Index covers price changes of the basket of goods and services consumed by all households on Rarotonga (the main island).
The base year is 2019. Prices are collected for 199 items and from selected outlets around Rarotonga. Individual prices are combined using weights from the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) conducted in 2015/2016. The HIES information was used to select the basket of goods and services.
The inclusion of an underlying measure is a recent improvement and it is published at the same time as the CPI. The underlying measure excludes items of a highly volatile nature, items that are subject to policy changes.
It excludes some items fruits, vegetables, meat and fish, electricity rates, purchases of new and used motor vehicles, petrol and diesel, international airfares and domestic airfares.
The CPI is calculated as chain-linked Jevons indices (change in the geometric average price). At the higher level, indices will be calculated with standard Laspeyres-type aggregation.
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