KEY FACTS

Quarterly change

The March 2025 Consumer Price Index declined by 0.1% compared to the December quarter 2024.

• The largest increase was from Clothing & Footwear group of 4.8% increase, especially clothing 5.1% increase.
• Health cost rose by 4.0%, driven by rise in medical product and equipment of 7.2%t.
• Restaurants & Hotels group increased by 2.6%, influenced by Catering Services up by 2.7%.
• Miscellaneous Goods & Services increased by 1.8%.
• Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages rose by 1.1%.
• Housing and household utilities group increased by 0.8%.
• Furnishing, household equipment, and routine group increased by 0.5%.

All these increases were counterbalanced by decreases in the

• Transport group by 4.3%, mainly due to a significant drop in transport services of 10.9%
• Communication group fell by 2.9%.
• Recreation and Culture group decreased by 2.6%
• Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco group declined by 1.5%.

Annual change

From the March 2024 quarter to the March 2025 quarter, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) 1.1% with the Underlying CPI of 2.1%.

• The Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages Group saw a moderate increase of 2.3%, driven by significant rises in hot drinks (18.8%) and meat/dairy (both 7.7%). This was partially offset by price decreases in vegetables (-6.4%), confectionery (-4.4%), seafood (-3.3%), and refreshment drinks (-2.1%).

• The Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco Group saw a slight increase of 1.1%, driven by gains in beer (2.6%), tobacco, and spirits (both 0.6%), offset by a significant decline in wine (-2.9%).

• Transport Group fell 1.2%, mainly due to lower fuel (-6.4%) and airfares (-0.7%), offsetting strong growth in motorcycle (13.8%) and road transport costs (25.0%).

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.