KEY FACTS

Quarterly change

In the December quarter of 2024, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 0.4% compared to the September quarter.

The rise was primarily driven by higher costs in key consumer groups:

• Transport rose significantly by 2.2%, driven by increased international airfares, new vehicle purchases, and fuel prices.
• Education costs increased by 1.9%, mainly due to higher tuition fees.
• Miscellaneous Goods & Services saw a 1.4% rise, while Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco increased by 1.2%.

These increases were partially offset by declines in:

• Restaurants & Hotels (-1.3%)
• Furnishings, Household Equipment & Routine Household Maintenance (-1.06%)
• Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas & Other Fuels (-1.0%)

Annual change

From December 2023 to December 2024, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 3.2%, while the Underlying CPI rose by 2.9%.

• Transport group grew by 4.4%
• Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco group saw a 2.9% rise,
• Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverage group increased by 2.8%,

The CPI for December 2024 compared to December 2023 shows notable price changes across various categories, with significant increases in food, alcoholic beverages, and transport costs.

• Transport services rose by +12.59% due to higher travel costs, likely from fuel prices and demand. Vehicle purchases went up by +2.53%, but this was less than the +5.25% rise in transport operation costs, showing the growing expense of owning a vehicle.

• Alcoholic beverages saw the largest increase among consumables at +8.15%, whereas tobacco experienced only a slight rise of +0.87%.

•  Food prices saw a slight rise (+2.87%), indicating stability.

More on Consumers Price Index…

More information on Consumer Price Index (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.