Consumers Price Index - March 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 December 2020 quarter, the consumer price index (CPI) and the Underlying CPI increased by 0.8 percent
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Communication group rose 2.5 percent, influenced by higher prices in the Telephone and telefax services (up by 2.7 percent).
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Housing and household utilities groups rose 1.5 percent, influenced by prices in the Maintenance and repair of the dwelling (up by 7.3 percent).
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Household contents and household maintenance group rose by 1.1 percent
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Miscellaneous Goods & Services Group, Recreation & Culture Group and the Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages group increased by 0.9 percent.
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Other minor increases were from the Alcoholic Beverages, Tobacco and Narcotics Group up (by 0.8 percent) and the Transport Group (up by 0.1 percent).
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All these increase were offset by lower prices from the Restaurants and accommodation services group (down by 0.7 percent).
Annual change
From the March 2020 quarter to the March 2021 quarter, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 1.6percent with the Underlying CPI of 2.2percent.
- Food prices rose by 3.2 percent, influenced by rise in the Fish & Seafood prices (up 5.3 percent).
- Alcohol & Tobacco rose by 0.1 percent influenced by higher prices for Wine (up by 8.0 percent) and Spirits (up 7.0 percent)
- Transport fell by 2.1 percent, influenced by lower prices for passenger transport services (down by 4.8 percent).
More on Consumers Price Index...
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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