Al­though there was a slight de­crease in in­fla­tion for Ju­ly, food prices con­tin­ued to rise dur­ing the month, ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice's (CSO) Con­sumer Price In­dex. 

The CSO in its Con­sumer Price In­dex re­lease yes­ter­day said the in­fla­tion rate per­cent­age for Ju­ly 2024 over Ju­ly 2023, was 0.3 per cent which rep­re­sents a de­crease from 0.7 per cent record­ed in the pre­vi­ous month (June 2024/June 2023). 

The CSO said the In­fla­tion Rate for the com­par­a­tive pe­ri­od (Ju­ly 2023/Ju­ly 2022) stood at 4.7 per cent. 

How­ev­er, the all-items in­dex cal­cu­lat­ed from the prices col­lect­ed for Ju­ly 2024 was 123.9, rep­re­sent­ing an in­crease of 0.2 points or 0.2 per cent above the all-items in­dex for June 2024 as shown in the ta­ble at­tached. 

The CSO not­ed that the in­dex for food and non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages in­creased from 148.6 in June 2024 to 149.6 in Ju­ly 2024, re­flect­ing an in­crease of 0.7 per cent 

In­creas­es were al­so not­ed for al­co­holic bev­er­ages and to­bac­co of 1.7 per cent cloth­ing and footwear at 0.1 per cent, home own­er­ship of 0.7 per cent, rent of 0.1 per cent, health at 0.1 per cent, com­mu­ni­ca­tion of 0.1 per cent, recre­ation and cul­ture at 0.4 per cent, ho­tels, cafes and restau­rants or 0.9 per cent and mis­cel­la­neous goods and ser­vices or 0.1 per cent. 

How­ev­er, it stat­ed there were de­creas­es in the sub-in­dices for fur­nish­ing, house­hold equip­ment, and rou­tine main­te­nance of the house of 2.2 per cent and trans­port of 0.5 per cent. 

What is the CPI? 

 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. 

 The CPI mon­i­tors the prices of a fixed bas­ket of goods and ser­vices in 15 ar­eas (lo­cale) in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Month­ly price sur­veys for food and pe­tro­le­um items are con­duct­ed in gro­ceries, shops, and lo­cal mar­kets. Prices are col­lect­ed quar­ter­ly for oth­er items that are not as vari­able. 

The da­ta from the house­hold bud­get sur­vey (HBS) was used to de­ter­mine: 

* Which items were se­lect­ed for the bas­ket of items mon­i­tored by the CPI; 

* The weights of these items i.e. their rel­a­tive im­por­tance com­pared with all oth­er items in the bas­ket and; 

* The weights of the ar­eas mon­i­tored by the CPI. 

Changes in the CPI can be used to as­sess price changes as­so­ci­at­ed with the cost of liv­ing. The CPI is one of the most fre­quent­ly used sta­tis­tics for iden­ti­fy­ing pe­ri­ods of in­fla­tion or de­fla­tion.