Av­er­age prices in Trinidad and To­ba­go last month were 3.9 per cent high­er than in Sep­tem­ber 2022, ac­cord­ing to the Sep­tem­ber Re­tail Price In­dex re­port of the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO).

The re­port in­di­cates that the av­er­age prices of food and non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages were 4.7 per cent high­er in Sep­tem­ber 2023 than in Sep­tem­ber 2022. The In­dex for food and non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages in­creased from 147.0 in Au­gust 2023 to 148.2 in Sep­tem­ber 2023, re­flect­ing an in­crease of 0.8 per cent, ac­cord­ing to the CSO.

There was the gen­er­al up­ward move­ment in the prices of Irish pota­toes, chilled or frozen beef, fresh beef, chilled or frozen pork, cu­cum­ber, chive, soya bean oil, onions, mixed fresh sea­son­ing and oth­er chilled or frozen chick­en.

How­ev­er, the full im­pact of these price in­creas­es were off­set by the gen­er­al de­creas­es in the prices of pump­kin, fresh whole chick­en, ta­ble mar­garine, par­boiled rice, white flour, or­anges, toma­toes, grapes, ed­does and fresh steak.

The CSO not­ed that a fur­ther re­view of the da­ta for Sep­tem­ber 2023 com­pared with Au­gust 2023 re­flect­ed an in­crease in the sub-in­dex for al­co­holic bev­er­ages and to­bac­co of 0.3 per cent. Al­so, this pe­ri­od showed a de­crease in the sub-in­dex for cloth­ing and footwear of 0.7 per cent and health of 0.1 per cent.

All oth­er sec­tions re­mained un­changed.

The Re­tail 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 RPI mon­i­tors the prices of a fixed bas­ket of goods and ser­vices in 15 ar­eas (lo­cale) in T&T.

Month­ly price sur­veys are con­duct­ed in gro­ceries, shops and lo­cal mar­kets for food and pe­tro­le­um items. Prices are col­lect­ed quar­ter­ly for oth­er items that are not as vari­able.

The three largest con­trib­u­tors to the all-prices in­dex are home own­er­ship with 19.3 per cent, food and non-al­co­holic bev­er­ages at 17.3 per cent and trans­porta­tion at 14.7 per cent. Da­ta from the House­hold Bud­get Sur­vey is used to de­ter­mine the items that are se­lect­ed for the bas­ket of goods mon­i­tored by the RPI and the weights of those items.

The CSO is cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing the House­hold Bud­get Sur­vey, which is be­ing com­bined with the Sur­vey of Liv­ing Con­di­tions. Those sur­veys are ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in Jan­u­ary 2024.