KEY FACTS

In the December 2023 quarter compared with September 2023 quarter, the consumer price index (CPI) increased by 0.11% and the Underlying CPI increased by 0.37%

• Miscellaneous goods & services rising by 1.47%, influenced by
  • Personal effects n.e.c. products (up by 10.06%)
  • Personal care (up by 1.06%)
• Recreation & Culture saw a 1.46% increase, influenced by
  • Newspapers, books and stationery (up by 3.84%)
  • Durable goods, semi-durable goods, and services (up by 1.31%)
  • Other recreational items and equipment’s (up by 0.58%)
• Communications group increased by 0.70%, influenced by
  • Telephone and telefax equipment (up by 15.84%)
• While Restaurants & accommodation services group, Education group, Household contents & maintenance group and the Food & non-alcoholic beverages group showed minimal increases of 0.42%, 0.30%, 0.09% and 0.07% respectively. However, lower prices from Alcoholic beverages & tobacco group, offset these increases down by 0.76%.

Annual change

From the December 2022 quarter to the December 2023 quarter, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 3.99% with the Underlying CPI rising by 4.93%.

• Transport group saw a 5.23% increase influenced by
  • Passenger transport by air (35.9%)
  • Purchase of motor cars (5.3%)
  • Maintenance and repair of personal transport equipment (4.9%)
  • Spare parts and accessories for personal transport equipment (2.8%)
• Food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by 5.20%, influenced by
  • Oils & Fats up by 16.7%
  • Mineral water, soft drinks, fruit and vegetable juices by 12.9%
  • Bread & Cereals group and the Coffee, Tea & cocoa group increased by 11.1%
  • Milk, cheese and eggs, up by 9.6%
  • Sugar, jam, honey, chocolate and confectionery up by 9.2%
  • Vegetables saw a 7.8% increase
  • Fruits up by 6.9%
  • Food products n.e.c increased by 4.1%
• Alcoholic beverages, tobacco group rose by 2.79%

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.