The Consumer Price Index for September 2022 rose 15.3 per cent compared to September 2021. It also went up 0.2 per cent in comparison to the previous month.
This was mainly influenced by the increase in the Imported goods component by 21.0 per cent from the same month last year, as a result of higher prices for fuel, imported food, building material, toiletries, washing soap and mosquito repellent products, according to the Samoa Bureau of Statistics report on the Consumer Price (CPI) ending the month of September.
The CPI measures the rate of inflation for Samoa. It is designed to measure the change in prices for the goods purchased by households in Samoa.
The CPI measures the change in prices by comparing the prices for a basket of goods and services at the collection period with the price for the same goods in a base period.
The basket of goods that is priced is based on the average expenditures of households as recorded in the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES). The HIES survey identifies how much households spend on different items.
The more households spend on an item on average, the more important it is to the price index and the higher the weight in the index.
The Local goods component also contributed to the increase when it went up by 9.1 per cent on a year-on-year basis, due to higher prices for local food and meals, phone calls, internet and airline fares. Graph 1 shows the percentage changes over the same month last year in the Consumer Price Index by all Divisions from September 2021 to September 2022.
The Imported goods component of the Consumer Price Index registered an increase of 21.0 per cent when compared to the same month last year.
This increase was mainly due to higher prices recorded for fuel (petrol, diesel and kerosene), cement, cooking gas, timber, chicken leg quarter, rice, butter, turkey wings, cooking oil, flour, onion, cup noodle, corned beef, potatoes, vermicelli, toilet paper, washing soap and mosquito coil.
According to the report, there is an increase in prices recorded for airline fares, mobile phone calling per minute, internet, taro, fresh fish, banana, round pancake, mineral water, coconut, taamu and meals have resulted in the 9.1 per cent increase in the local goods component.
