The Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA) has released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of June 2020. The CPI of June 2020 reached to 95.91 point showing an increase by 0.26% when compared to CPI of May 2020. Compared to CPI of June 2019, [Y-o-Y basis], a decrease of 3.41% has been recorded in the general index (CPI) of this month.
This release of CPI, is the sixth issuance using the new base of 2018, calculated from the results of the household income and Expenditure survey 2017/2018. Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose (CIOCOP) has been used, which divided the prices basket to twelve main groups, started with “Food and Nonalcoholic beverages” group, and to end up with “Miscellaneous goods and Services” group. 737 commodities and services have been covered all the groups.
Looking at the relative importance of the base year 2018, it has been found that, the pattern of households did not change much during the previous five years, since the relative importance between 2013 and 2018 was almost equal during the period, and no major change was observed on them, the groups of “Food and Beverages”, “Housing, Water, Electricity and other Fuel”, “Transport”, and “Recreation and Culture” still considered as the most important to consumer families, chart No. (1) and table (1) show the relative importance (weights) of commodities and services groups in the consumer price basket for 2018.
1. Monthly change (June 2020 to May 2020):
An analysis [on M-o-M basis] of CPI for June 2020 compared with CPI, May 2020, shows that there are five main groups, where respective indices in this month have increased, namely: “Transport” by 3.22%, “Food and Beverages” by 2.52%, “Miscellaneous Goods and Services” by 0.74%, “Furniture and Household Equipment” by 0.06%, and “Education” by 0.01%. A decrease has been recorded in “Recreation and Culture” by 6.06%, and “Clothing and Footwear” by 0.62%. The groups of “Tobacco”, “Housing, Water, Electricity and other Fuel” “Health”, “Communication”, and “Restaurants and Hotels” had remained flat at the last month’s price level. Table (2) show the monthly and annual Comparison for CPI June 2020, and Graphs (2),(3) show the movement of monthly CPIs of “Food and Beverages” and “Housing, Water, Electricity and Gas” from June 2019 to June 2020.
2. Annual change (June 2020 to June 2019):
A comparison of the CPI, June 2020 with the CPI, June 2019 (Annual Change), a decrease has been recorded in the general index (CPI), by 3.41%. This [Y-o-Y] price decrease primary due to the prices decline seen in seven groups namely: “Recreation and Culture” by 16.17%, “Clothing and Footwear” by 4.85%, “Transport” by 4.56%, “Housing, Water, Electricity and other Fuel” by 3.62%, “Communication” by 3.26%, “Food and Beverages” by 0.70%, and “Furniture and Household Equipment” by 0.39%. An increase has been shown in price levels also in five groups namely: “Tobacco” by 4.41%, followed by “Miscellaneous Goods and Services” by 2.50%, “Health” and “ education” by 1.19 each%, and, “Restaurants and Hotels” by 0.35%. “Graph (4) shows a monthly and an annual change in CPI during June 2019 to June 2020.
The CPI of June , 2020 excluding “Housing, Water, Electricity and other Fuel” group stands at 96.59 points showing an increase of 0.33% when compared to the index of May 2020, and a decrease of 3.26% when compared to the CPI of June 2019. Table (3) presents CPI excluding “Housing, Water, Electricity and other Fuel” and Graph (5) shows the annual percentage change of CPI with and without Housing component.
