The Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) re­port­ed yes­ter­day that there was an in­crease in the rate of in­fla­tion in April 2025.

In the CSO’s Con­sumer Price In­dex (CPI) for the month of April 2025, it was not­ed that the in­fla­tion rate for the month, which mea­sures the per­cent­age change in the all items in­dex for the month of April 2025 over April 2024, was 1.5 per cent.

The CSO said, “This rep­re­sents an in­crease from 1.0 per cent for the pre­vi­ous pe­ri­od (March 2025/March 2024). The in­fla­tion rate for the com­par­a­tive pe­ri­od (April 2024/April 2023) was 0.5%.”

The re­lease con­tin­ued, “The all items in­dex cal­cu­lat­ed from the prices col­lect­ed for the month of April 2025 was 125.2, rep­re­sent­ing an in­crease of 0.2 point or 0.2 per cent above the all items in­dex for March 2025.”

Be­tween April 2024 and April 2025, food and non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages in­creased 4.7 per cent, while al­co­holic bev­er­age and to­bac­co were up by 3.3 per cent.

The re­lease how­ev­er stat­ed the in­dex for food and non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages de­creased from 153.4 in March 2025 to 152.9 in April 2025, re­flect­ing a de­crease of -0.3 per cent.

The re­lease ex­plained that this de­crease was due to the gen­er­al down­ward move­ment in the prices of fresh whole chick­ens, hot pep­pers, toma­toes, cab­bage, cu­cum­ber, fresh king fish, plan­tains, full cream pow­dered milk, pi­men­to and me­l­on­gene.

The CSO how­ev­er stat­ed, “The full im­pact of these price de­creas­es was off­set by the gen­er­al in­crease in the prices of pump­kin, irish pota­toes, gar­lic, fresh steak, ta­ble mar­garine, ched­dar cheese, or­anges, par­boiled rice, ochroes and onions.”

The no­tice closed, “A fur­ther re­view of the da­ta for April 2025 com­pared with March 2025 re­flect­ed in­creas­es in the sub-in­dices:

* Al­co­hol and to­bac­co of 0.7 per cent;

* Home own­er­ship of 0.7 per cent;

* Rent of 0.7 per cent;

* Health of 0.3 per cent;

* Trans­port of 0.4 per cent;

* Recre­ation and cul­ture of 0.1 per cent;

* Ho­tels, cafes and restau­rants of 0.6 per cent; and

* Mis­cel­la­neous goods and ser­vices of 0.2 per cent.

This pe­ri­od al­so showed a de­crease in the sub-in­dex for fur­nish­ings, house­hold equip­ment and rou­tine main­te­nance of the house of -0.4 per cent.

All oth­er sec­tions re­mained un­changed.

The Con­sumer Price In­dex is a weight­ed av­er­age of the pro­por­tion­ate changes in the prices of a spec­i­fied set or ‘bas­ket’ of con­sumer goods and ser­vices be­tween two pe­ri­ods of time. The CPI mon­i­tors the prices of a fixed bas­ket of goods and ser­vices in 15 ar­eas (lo­cale) in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Month­ly price sur­veys are con­duct­ed in gro­ceries, shops and lo­cal mar­kets for food and pe­tro­le­um items. Price are col­lect­ed quar­ter­ly for oth­er items that are not as vari­able.