Consumers Price Index - June Quarter 2021
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 March 2021 quarter compared with June 2021 quarter, the consumer price index (CPI) increased by 3.0 percent and the Underlying CPI by 1.9 percent.
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Transport increased by 9.9 percent, with private transport supplies (up by 13.6%) and purchase of vehicles (up by 10.5%)
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Miscellaneous goods and services group rose by 4.9 percent driven by higher prices of other services (up by 12.9 percent).
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Food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by 4.8 percent, with Food (up by 5.0%) and Non-alcoholic beverages (up by 3.1%).
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Health group also rose by 0.4 percent, influenced by prices in the medical products, appliances and equipment (up by 0.7%).
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Alcoholic beverages & Tobacco groups increased by 0.2 percent
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All these increases were offset by decreases in the Restaurants & Hotels services (fell by 1.5%), Communications (fell by 1.2%), Housing Utilities (fell by 0.8%), Recreation & Culture (fell by 0.8%) and Clothing & Footwear (fell by 0.4%).
Annual change
From the June 2020 quarter to the June 2021 quarter, the CPI inflation rate was 1.4 percent with the Underlying CPI of 3.6 percent.
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Miscellaneous Goods & Services group rose by 5.2 percent, with contribution from Personal effects n.e.c subgroup of 50.0 percent.
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Household contents and household maintenance increased by 5.2 percent, with the main increase in prices of Household appliances with 37.5 percent and Furniture and furnishings, carpets and other floor coverings by 20.5 percent.
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Food prices increased by 2.3 percent with the highest increase in prices of Fish & Seafood subgroup by 8.2 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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