Key facts
Quarterly Change
In the September 2022 quarter compared with June 2022 quarter, the All Group Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 5.0 percent and the Underlying CPI increased by 3.9 percent.
- Housing Utilities group rose by 11.5%. driven predominantly by higher prices in the Electricity rate of 18% (due to the cost to supply electricity i.e diesel and oil) and maintenance & repair of dwelling subgroup of 4.3% (affected by higher prices of building materials i.e timber, plywood, pipes and paints)
- Clothing and Footwear group increased by 6.7%
- Food Group rose by 6.1% subjective to higher prices in the meat 9%, food products, bread & cereals, fish and seafood, oils & fats subgroups of 8%
- Household contents and household maintenance group also increased by 4.6%, Restaurants & Hotels by 4.4%, Transport Group increased by 3.2% and other minor increases were from the Education Group 0.8%, Miscellaneous 0.7%, Recreation & Culture 0.6%
- All these increases were offset by lower prices from the Communications group by 0.1%.
Annual Change
From the September 2021 quarter to the September 2022 quarter, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 15.3 percent with the Underlying CPI of 11.8 percent.
- Food prices rose by 21.5 percent, influenced by rise in nearly everything in the food subgroups.
- Transport increased by 24.2 percent. The largest upward contribution came from the passenger transport services, fuels and lubricants, parts and accessories for transport equipment’s
- Alcohol & Tobacco rose by 3.5 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.
