Housing and household utilities drive CPI

The Consumers Price Index (CPI) increased 0.5 percent in the September 2007 quarter, Statistics NewZealand said today.

Prices for the housing and household utilities group made the most significant upwardcontribution to the CPI this quarter (up 1.8 percent).

The increase in the housing and household utilities group was mainly due to price increases for localauthority rates and payments (up 6.0 percent) and the purchase of new housing (up 1.8 percent).

Prices for the food group were up 1.2 percent in the September 2007 quarter, mainly due to price increasesfor the grocery food (up 1.7 percent) and fruit and vegetables (up 4.3 percent) subgroups.

The mostsignificant individual upward contributions came from higher prices for fresh milk (up 10.8 percent) andtomatoes (up 28.0 percent).

Health prices decreased 3.1 percent in the September 2007 quarter, with the main contributions comingfrom price decreases for pharmaceutical products (down 16.2 percent) and general practitionerfees (down 15.4 percent).

The decrease in the education group (down 5.2 percent) was mainly driven bylower prices for early childhood education (down 32.4 percent). Both the health and education groups'decreases reflect changes in government funding.

Of the remaining seven groups, four recorded increases: alcoholic beverages and tobacco (up 1.7percent), transport (up 0.4 percent), miscellaneous goods and services (up 0.8 percent) and recreation andculture (up 0.3 percent).

Three recorded decreases:

clothing and footwear (down 0.5 percent), householdcontents and services (down 0.3 percent) and communication (down 0.3 percent)

For the year to the September 2007 quarter, the CPI increased 1.8 percent, following a rise of 2.0 percentfor the year to the June 2007 quarter.

The groups that made the most significant upward contributionsfor the year to the September 2007 quarter were housing and household utilities (up 5.1 percent) and food(up 3.3 percent)

. The largest downward contribution came from the transport group, which decreased 1.4percent.