Consumers Price Index - December Quarter 2022
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 2022 quarter compared with September 2022 quarter, the All Group Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 2.0 percent and the Underlying CPI increased by 0.9 percent.
- Clothing and Footwear Division increased by 6.9 per cent influenced by a 21.3 per cent rise in the index for the Footwear group and a slight increase of 5.1 per cent in the Clothing group
- Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages Division increased by 5.5 per cent, due to higher cost of seafood, meat, vegetables, milk, cheese and eggs.
- Recreation and Culture Division rose by 5.4 per cent
- Household contents and household maintenance Division increased by 4.4%
- Miscellaneous Goods and Services Division increased by 3.1 per cent
- Restaurants & Hotels Division rose by 2.8%,
- Education Division increased by 0.8 per cent
All these increases were narrowed by decreases in the
- Housing Utilities Division (down by 2.8 per cent),
- Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco Division (down to 0.8 per cent). Due to reduced prices for spirits and wine
- Transport Division decreased by 0.5 per cent caused by low air fares
Annual change
From the December 2021 quarter to the December 2022 quarter, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 14.0 percent with the Underlying CPI of 11.1 percent.
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Food prices rose by 23.5 percent, influenced by price increase in nearly everything in the food groups.
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Transport increased by 11.9 percent. The largest upward contribution came from the passanger transport services and purchase of new motor vehicles
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Alcohol & Tobacco rose by 2.7 percent influenced by price increase of alcohol
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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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