KEY FACTS

Quarterly change

The September 2025 Consumer Price Index increased by 0.5% compared to the June quarter 2025.

• Household Contents and Household Maintenance rose 3.2%, driven by strong increases in furniture and furnishings, household appliances, tools and equipment.
• Recreation and Culture increased 1.7%, primarily driven by increased prices within the group.
• Housing and Utilities rose 1.6%, reflecting higher maintenance and repair of dwellings and modest increases in electricity, gas and other fuels.
• Clothing and Footwear increased 1.3%, with footwear up 2.5% and clothing up 1.1% over the quarter.
• Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages increased 0.6%, driven by food prices rising

All these increases were counterbalanced by decreases in the

• Education decreased 2.6%, mainly due to lower tertiary education fees
• Tobacco & Alcohol group decreased by 0.7%
• Restaurants and Accommodation Services decreased 0.4%
• Miscellaneous Goods and Services fell 0.2%, with significant declines in household textiles and other recreational items
• Communication group decreased 0.1%

Annual change

From the September 2024 quarter to the September 2025 quarter, the All-Groups CPI increased by 1.14%, showing a continuation of subdued annual inflation compared with the elevated levels recorded between 2021 and 2023.
The Underlying Index rose by 2.09% over the same period.

Among the selected groups:

• Food prices increased by 2.12% over the year, continuing to be one of the strongest contributors to annual inflation.
  • Coffee, tea and cocoa: up by 17.9%
  • Milk, cheese and eggs: up by 11.9%
  • Meat :up by 6.6%
  • Fruit: up by 2.6%
  • Food products n.e.c: up by 0.2%

• Alcohol & Tobacco prices fell by 0.25%, reflecting a modest annual decline for the group.
• Transport prices declined by 1.74%, placing downward pressure on the overall CPI following previous periods of volatility.

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.