Key facts
Quarterly Change
In the June 2020 quarter compared with March 2020 quarter, the consumer price index (CPI) was 0.17 percent with the Underlying CPI of 0.14 percent.
- Housing and Household Utilities group rose by 0.54 percent driven by increases in prices of Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels subgroup.
- Communication group prices rose 0.53 percent driven by costs in telephone equipments.
- Food prices rose 0.30 percent, influenced by increasing prices of meat (up 1.42 percent), vegetables (up 0.17 percent), bread and cereals (up 0.16 percent).
- All these increases were offset by the fall in the Recreation and Culture group (0.97 percent) with cheaper audio and computer equipment.
Annual Change
From the June 2019 quarter to the June 2020 quarter, the CPI inflation rate was 0.72 percent with the Underlying CPI of 1.47 percent.
- Clothing and Footwear rose by 5.32 percent, with contribution from footwear 7.22 percent and Clothing 4.68 percent.
- Household contents and maintenance increased 3.70 percent, with increase in prices for routine household maintenace.
- Food prices increased 1.62 percent
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 2006. Prices are collected for 205 items and from selected outlets around Rarotonga. Individual prices are combined using weights from the Household Expenditure Survey (HES) conducted in 2004/5. The HES 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 all locally produced fruits, vegetables, meat and fish, international airfares, mortgage interest, government rent, postal and telecommunication charges, electricity charges, tobacco and alcohol, petrol and diesel.
The CPI is computed using the Laspeyres price index formula.
