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 March2022 quarter compared with June 2022 quarter, the consumer price index (CPI) increased by 3.1 percentand the Underlying CPI by2.5 percent.
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Transport increased by 6.7 percent, with private transport supplies (up by 5.6%), Transport Services (up by 4.8%) and purchase of vehicles (up by 1.8%)
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Food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by 5.4 percent, with Food (up by 5.6%) and Non-alcoholic beverages (up by 2.2%).
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Household contents and household maintenance rose by 2.9 per cent driven by higher prices of furniture and furnishings at 18.1%
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Restaurants & Hotels services increased by 1.2 per cent influenced by higher prices in the restaurant meals and ready to eat food
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Alcoholic beverages & Tobacco groups and Miscellaneous goods & services group rose by 0.6 per cent
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Communications increased by 0.3 per cent
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All these increases were offset by decreases in the Recreation & Culture fell by 0.4 per cent subjective by lower prices of Information processing equipment’s
Annual change
From the June 2021 quarter to the June 2022 quarter, the CPI inflation rate was 7.6 per cent with the Underlying CPI at 6.7 per cent.
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Food group rose by 12.83 per cent, impacted by price increases in nearly everything in the Food sub-groups.
Meat up by 27.2%, Fruits rose by 20.1%, Oils & fats by 13.8%, Vegetables by 9.6%, Sugar, jam, honey, chocolate & confectionery by 9.2%, Milk, Cheese and eggs by 9.2, Food products by 7.1%, Bread & Cereals by 6.8%, Mineral water, soft drinks, fruit & vegetable juices by 5.1% and Coffee, tea & cocoa by 1.5%
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Transport group rose by 12.75 percent, influenced by price increase in the transport services subgroup by 42.9%, Fuel subgroup of 27.0% and Passenger transport by air subgroup of 4.6%.
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Alcohol & Tobacco rose by 0.66 per cent, with contribution of 2.2% price increase of spirits and 1.2% price increase of beer. These increases in Alcohol & Tobacco were offset by decreases in prices of wine subgroup by 1.1% and Tobacco subgroup by 0.1%.
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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.
Downloads:
CPI_Statistics_CPI Tables_202202.xlsx