THE inflation rate for Honiara has fallen by 0.9 percent in May from 194.6 in April to 192.9 recording a further decline since March says the Solomon Islands National Statistics Office.
Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a monthly indicator of the variation in prices for retail goods and other items.
The basket of goods chosen represents the spending behaviour of the population of Honiara and the resulting CPI is used to calculate inflation.
Government Statistician Douglas Kimi while releasing the Honiara Consumer Price Index (CPI) statistics for the month of May recently said the decline was mainly driven by price drops in Food, Drinks and Tobacco, and Housing and Utilities categories of the index, outweighing price increases in Transport and Communication.
“The Food index dropped during the month by 1.9 percent to 178.4. This was mainly driven by price declines in fresh fruits and vegetables at the Honiara market; most notable were bush cabbage -0.1 percent, tomatoes -0.4 percent, green bean -0.3 percent, fern cabbage -0.4 percent, dry coconuts -0.2 percent, cucumber -0.1 percent and cassava -0.1 percent. These outweighed price rises in melon 0.1 percent, kumara heaps 0.1 percent, bush lime 0.2 percent, cooking bananas 0.1 percent and ripe bananas 0.2 percent resulting in the fall of the overall food index,” Mr Kimi stated.
Other major changes in other sub-indexes include;
- Drinks and Tobacco slightly fell 0.9 percent driven by a marginal drop -0.02 percent in both the prices of tobacco and betel nut.
- Housing and Utilities dropped 0.5 percent on account of a marginal drop -0.02 percent in both electricity charges and LP gas, outweighing a rise 0.06 percent in the price of kerosene.
- Transport and Communication went up marginally by 0.06 percent resulting from slight increases in diesel and petrol prices by 0.05 per cent and 0.04 per cent respectively.
The Government Statistician said apart from the above, price movements elsewhere in the consumption basket were negligible.
He said the overall annual headline inflation rate for the month of May 2018 calculated on a three months moving average basis was 2.8 percent, down marginally by 1.1 percentage points from 3.9 percent the previous month.
The corresponding inflation rates for imported and other items were 0.1 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively.
“The main underlying rates of inflation based on a 3 months moving average for the month of May 2018 were observed between -0.4 percent and 2.2 percent while the headline inflation rate was at 2.8 percent,” he added.
–SINSO PRESS
