Consumer Price Index for June 2009

Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that the Composite CPI for June 2009 rose by 1.10% year-on-year to 126.10, of which the price indices of Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco; Clothing & Footwear; and Food & Non-Alcoholic Beverages went up by 13.88%, 9.07% and 5.10% respectively. The price index of Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco recorded a significant year-on-year growth due to a 19.39% upsurge in the prices of cigarettes. As regards Clothing & Footwear, price indices of footwear (+11.32%) and women’s clothing (+8.02%) registered marked rise while notable increase was observed in the price indices of fresh seafood (+31.49%), fresh fish (+25.06%) and fruit (+12.72%) in the subgroups of Food & Non-Alcoholic Beverages. On the contrary, price index of Transport registered a year-on-year decrease of 10.06% on account of falling prices of gasoline. The CPI-A and CPI-B for June 2009 were 127.88 and 125.60 respectively, up by 1.05% and 1.16% year-on-year. The average Composite CPI for the first half year of 2009 went up by 2.54% over the same period of 2008. For the 12 months ended June 2009, the average Composite CPI rose by 5.31% over the preceding period. The Composite CPI for June 2009 increased by 0.39% month-to-month, with the price indices of Transport; Clothing & Footwear; and Food & Non-Alcoholic Beverages rising by 2.57%, 0.60% and 0.57% respectively, attributable to a pick-up in the selling prices of gasoline, higher prices of women’s clothing, soaring prices of fish & seafood during the fishing moratorium, as well as rising prices of vegetables. However, decreasing rentals for housing drove down the price index of Housing & Fuels by 0.12%. The CPI-A and CPI-B rose by 0.35% and 0.40% respectively month-to-month. The Composite CPI for the second quarter of 2009 increased by 1.79% over the same quarter of 2008, with marked increase in the price indices of Clothing & Footwear (+10.75%), Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco (+9.76%) and Food & Non-Alcoholic Beverages (+6.11%). The Composite CPI reflects the impact of price changes on the general population. The CPI-A relates to about 49% of households, which have an average monthly expenditure of MOP3,000 to MOP9,999. The CPI-B relates to about 31% of households, which have an average monthly expenditure of MOP10,000 to MOP19,999.