The Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA) has released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of January 2020. The CPI of January 2020 reached to 98.38 point showing a decrease of 0.90% when compared to CPI of December 2019. Compared to CPI of January 2019, [Y-o-Y basis], a decrease of 0.41% has been recorded in the general index (CPI) of this month.
This release of CPI, was the first 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, and that 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” are of the greatest importance 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( January 2020 to December 2019):
An analysis [on M-o-M basis] of CPI for January 2020 compared with CPI, December 2019, shows that there are five main groups, where respective indices in this month have decreased, namely: “Recreation and Culture” by 5.43%, “Transport” by 1.76%, “Miscellaneous Goods and Services” by 1.73%. “Housing, Water, Electricity and other Fuel” by 0.90%, and “Communication” by 0.09%. An increased has recorded in “Health” by 2.21%, “Restaurants and Hotels” by 1.54%. “Clothing and Footwear” by 1.48%, “Furniture and Household Equipment” by 0.63%, and “Food and Beverages” by 0.29%. “Tobacco”, and “Education” groups had remained flat at the last month’s price level. Table (2) show the monthly and annual Comparison for CPI January 2020, and Graphs (2),(3) show the movement of monthly CPIs of “Food and Beverages” and “Housing, Water, Electricity and Gas” from January 2019 to January 2020.
2. Annual change( January 2020 to January 2019):
A comparison of the CPI, January 2020 with the CPI, January 2019 (Annual Change), a decrease has been recorded in the general index (CPI), by 0.41%. This [Y-o-Y] price decrease primary due to the prices decline seen in the four groups namely: “Recreation and Culture” by 4.15%, “Housing, Water, Electricity and other Fuel” by 3.69%, “Communication” by 2.44%, and “Furniture and Household Equipment” by 0.49%. An increase has been shown in price levels in seven groups namely: “Restaurants and Hotels” by 4.96%, “Health” by 3.07%, “Miscellaneous Goods and Services” by 1.97%, “Transport” by 1.69%, “Food and Beverages” by 1.49%, “Education” by 0.95%, and “Clothing and Footwear” by 0.36%. No changes recorded in “Tobacco” group. “Graph (4) shows a monthly and an annual change in CPI during January 2019 to January 2020.
The CPI of January, 2020 excluding “Housing, Water, Electricity and other Fuel” group stands at 99.37 points showing a decrease of 0.78% when compared to the index of December 2019, and an increase of 0.55% when compared to the CPI of January 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.
For more information click here
