Clothing & footwear prices rise in Dec

22 Jan '08

3 min read

The Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) released January 22 the Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures for December 2007. According to the Composite CPI, overall consumer prices rose by 3.8% in December 2007 over a year earlier, larger than the 3.4% increase in November.

Analysed by sub-index, the year-on-year rates of increase in the CPI(A), CPI(B) and CPI(C) were 3.4%, 3.9% and 4.0% respectively in December 2007, which compared to 3.1%, 3.5% and 3.6% in November.

For discerning the latest trend in consumer prices, it is also useful to look at the changes in the seasonally adjusted CPIs. For the 3-month period ended December 2007, the average monthly rates of increase in the seasonally adjusted Composite CPI, CPI(A), CPI(B) and CPI(C) were 0.9%, 1.0%, 0.9% and 0.8% respectively. The corresponding rates of increase for the 3-month period ended November 2007 were 0.7%, 0.8%, 0.7% and 0.6%.

Apart from miscellaneous goods (3.9% in the Composite CPI and 4.5% in the CPI(A)); clothing and footwear (2.4% in the Composite CPI and 3.1% in the CPI(A)).

On the other hand, year-on-year decline in prices was recorded in December 2007 for durable goods (-3.8% in the Composite CPI and -4.0% in the CPI(A)).

As for miscellaneous services, the Composite CPI rose by 1.6% over a year earlier but the CPI(A) fell by 0.8%. Affected by the difference in expenditure patterns, implementation of the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme had smaller impact on the Composite CPI than on CPI(A), and the increase in charges for package tours had larger impact on the Composite CPI than on CPI(A), thus leading to different movements in the two CPIs.

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