Azerbaijan
Official title
Consumer Price Index.
Scope
The index is computed weekly and monthly for the country as a
whole and for each of the major towns.
Official base
Previous year = 100.
The index is published in seven forms: by reference to the
previous month; corresponding month of the previous year;
December of the previous year; December 1990; for the quarter by
reference to the previous quarter; corresponding quarter of the
previous year; for the period since the beginning of the year by
reference to the corresponding period of the previous year.
Sources of weights
The weights themselves reflect consumer expenditure on goods and
services as determined by household surveys carried out in 46 out
of 65 regions. The survey is conducted regularly on a monthly
basis and covers 1,625 households (0.12% of all households) of all
socio-economic groups of population in all economic areas.
High-income households are excluded.
Weights and composition
| Major groups
| Number of items
| Weights
| Approx. No. of price quotation (per location)
|
| Food, beverage and tobacco | 94 | 0.8032 | 8-10
|
| Clothing and footwear | 72 | 0.0222 | 6-8
|
| Rent, water, fuel and power | 11 | 0.0134 | 1
|
| Household goods | 30 | 0.0137 | 6-7
|
| Medical care | 9 | 0.0049 | 5
|
| Transport and communication | 14 | 0.0133 | 6-7
|
| Leasure, education and culture | 26 | 0.0868 | 8
|
| Personal care and hygiene | 12 | 0.0106 | 4-5
|
| Total | 268 | 0.9681 | ...
|
Household consumption expenditure
Household expenditures are defined as all expenditures for
purchasing goods and services for personal consumption. Consumer
expenditure excludes the cost of goods and services spent for
investment or accumulation purposes and the cost of goods and
services for which there is no real market price (consumption
from own agricultural production). It also excludes income taxes,
saving, insurance premiums and pension fund contributions.
Sample selection
The set of outlet in which prices are recorded was chosen to
reflect local conditions in trade as closely as
possible. It includes outlets of a variety of sizes (large,
medium, small) and types and forms of ownership (State or
cooperative; commercial or private commission; municipal and
unofficial markets) in the various neighbourhoods of the towns.
Items are selected taking into account their relative importance
to consumers, their representativity in terms of reflection of
price trends for goods of the same type, and regular presence on
the market. The sample includes goods and services of mass
consumption, as well as certain goods and services whose use is
optional (cars, gold jewellery, car servicing, etc.).
Method of data collection
Price information is collected by officials from the local
statistical offices from approximately 9,500 outlets located in
all major towns. Food prices are collected weekly
while non-food and services prices are collected monthly. It is
very important for prices to be collected on the regular
intervals (+/-1 day in case of weekly price collection and +/-3
days in case of monthly data collection). For each item 2 to 3
prices are recorded in various outlets in the centre of the town
and 3 to 4 prices in a variety of outlets on the outskirts of the
town. Most of the prices are collected by personal visits to the
outlets. For some items like electricity, gas, petrol, railway
fares, postal services, educational and health services, prices
are collected centrally.
Housing
Rent data, per 1 sq. meter of public apartments, are collected
quarterly. Owner occupied housing is not included in the index.
Specification of varieties
The description includes the brand, country of origin, model or
model number, nature of the article, size and other indicators
enabling the item to be distinguished from others of the same
type so that it may be correctly registered in the following
periods.
Substitution, quality changes
When a given type of good disappears from the market or the
quality of a good changes one of two possible procedures is used:
- duplication of the representative good (service), or
- use of a notional price (the mean price for the period
preceding the item's disappearance corrected by the overall price
index for a group of similar items)
Seasonal items
The CPI is subject to cyclical fluctuations during the year due
to the seasonal price fluctuation of fruit and vegetables.
Azerbaijan does not yet have a scientifically based methodology
for taking the seasonal component into account. The prices of
goods that disappear from the market from one season to the next
are not registered. A price index is imputed using the relative
indicator for the group of goods to which that item belongs.
This will guarantee that substitutions for seasonal goods are
self-correcting. In the case of fruit and vegetables, where a
new
and an old
item
of the same kind are both on the market,
a weighted average price is calculated taking into account the
gradually increasing quantity of the new
item and the
displacement of the old
item from the market.
Computation
The index is computed according to the Laspeyres formula as a
weighted arithmetic average with a fixed base with the weights
corresponding to the previous year.
National-level aggregate indices for commodity groups are
calculated by applying population weights. In principle, this
method will be employed until household statistics have been
improved and there is reliable information on household
consumption by region.
Other information
The work on developing a new type of consumer price index started
in 1993 and the first experimental calculations were done at the
beginning of 1994. Since January 1995 the CPI has been used as
the measure for the rate of inflation in the country.
Organisation and publication
State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan Republic
Prices in Azerbaijan
Trade and paid services