The Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) released on October 20 the Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures for September 2006.
According to the new 2004/05-based series of Composite CPI, overall consumer prices rose by 2.1 percent in September 2006 over a year earlier, smaller than the 2.5 percent increase in August.
Analysed by sub-index and on a year-on-year comparison, the CPI(A), CPI(B), and CPI(C) rose by 1.9 percent, 2.2 percent and 2.3 percent respectively in September 2006, also smaller than the corresponding increases of 2.3 percent, 2.6 percent and 2.6 percent in August.
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 September 2006, the average monthly rates of increase in the seasonally adjusted Composite CPI, CPI(A), CPI(B) and CPI(C) were 0.1 percent, virtually nil, 0.1 percent and 0.1 percent respectively.
The corresponding rates of increase for the 3-month period ended August 2006 were all 0.2 percent.
Amongst the various CPI components, year-on-year increases in prices were recorded in September 2006 for housing (4.8 percent in the Composite CPI and 3.9 percent in the CPI(A)), miscellaneous services (2.2 percent in the Composite CPI and 1.3 percent in the CPI(A)), clothing and footwear (2.0 percent in the Composite CPI and 3.3 percent in the CPI(A)), miscellaneous goods (1.8 percent in the Composite CPI and 1.2 percent in the CPI(A)).
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