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 December 2021 quarter compared with September 2021 quarter, the consumer price index (CPI) increased by 3.2 per cent and the Underlying CPI increased by 1.5 percent
- Transportation Division showed a sudden increase of 10.4 percent, influenced by higher prices of fuel in the Operation of personal transport group.
- The Food and Non-alcoholic beverages Division rose by 3.8 per cent
- Miscellaneous Division increased by 1.6 per cent.
- A 1.5 per cent increase was recorded in the index for Restaurants & Hotels Division
- Other minor increases were from the Recreation & Culture Division (up by 0.9 per cent), Communications Division (up by 0.7 per cent), Clothing & Footwear Division (by 0.6 per cent) and Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels Division (by 0.1 per cent)
- All these increase were offset by lower prices in the Alcoholic beverages, tobacco Division down by 0.04 per cent particularly prices of spirits.
Annual change
From the December 2020 quarter to the December 2021 quarter, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 3.2 percent with the Underlying CPI of 1.7 percent
- A 10.6 per cent increase was recorded in the index for the Transport Division. The marginal uptick was due to mainly price increase in the Operation of personal transport equipment by 27.6 per cent mainly higher cost of fuels.
- Food Division prices rose by 4.4 percent, influenced by rise in nearly everything in the Food Groups (up 4.6 per cent)
- Alcohol & Tobacco Division rose by 0.6 per cent influenced by higher prices for Spirits (up by 5.6 percent) and Wine (up 1.3 percent)
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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