THERE was an increase of 1.4 per cent in the price of food and non-alcoholic beverages for the month of October this year.
This was highlighted by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics in its October 31 release on the consumer price index.
The bureau noted that the average annual inflation rate for the 12 months to October 2017 stood at 3.7 per cent while the month-on-month inflation rate stood at 5.2 per cent.
According to the bureau the all items CPI for the month of October registered an increase of 0.6 per cent over September and stands at 122.9.
Alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics recorded a 0.6 per cent increase in price whereby higher prices were recorded for spirits, beer and yaqona.
Clothing and footwear items recorded a 0.3 per cent increase with higher prices recorded for garments while 0.2 per cent increase was recorded for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels with higher prices recorded for kerosene.
Furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance, health, communication and recreation and culture did not experience any change in price.
Meanwhile 0.8 per cent increase was recorded for the transport section with higher prices recorded for motor cars, spare parts and accessories for transport equipment and fuels and lubricants for transport equipment.
There are two measures of inflation used in Fiji – one compares the average CPI over the past 12 months with the average CPI over the previous 12 months while the other compares the CPI in the current month with the CPI in the comparable month of the previous year.
