Papua New Guinea
Official title
Consumer Price Index.
Scope
The index is compiled quarterly and relates to wage earners' households
in urban areas. A wage earner's household is defined as one in which at
least 50 per cent of its income comes from wages or salaries.
Urban
means areas with population of 2,000 or more in 1977.
Official base
1977 = 100.
Source of weights
The weights and selected items were derived from a household expenditure
survey conducted between September 1975 and February 1976 among 501 wage
earners' households in six urban areas of 2,000 or more inhabitants in
1977. The results were adjusted for price changes between the survey
period and 1977. The following criteria were applied in choosing items
for the index: (i) items with expenditure of not less than 0.05 per cent
of total expenditure; (ii) representative of the wider group of related
items to which they belong; and (iii) feasibility of collecting prices
regularly.
Weights and composition
| Major groups
| Number of items
| Weights
| Approximate number of price quotations
|
| Food
| 51 | 40.89 | ...
|
| Beverages and tobacco
| 7 | 20.00 | ...
|
| Clothing and footwear
| 16 | 6.17 | ...
|
| Rent, fuel and light
| 4 | 7.19 | ...
|
| Household equipment and operations
| 15 | 5.28 | ...
|
| Transport and communication
| 11 | 12.96 | ...
|
| Miscellaneous goods and services
| 20 | 7.51 | ...
|
| Total
| 124 | 100.00 | ...
|
Household consumption expenditure
Consumption expenditure for the purpose of the index comprises all goods
and services purchased for consumption by the index population. It
excludes gambling, superannuation, savings, cash gifts, life insurance
and income taxes.
Method of data collection
Prices are obtained from approximately 240 different outlets throughout
the six urban areas by agents or postal questionnaires.
Fresh fruit, vegetables and betel-nut prices are priced each week in
markets. Prices for other food items, non-food groceries, drinks and
tobacco are collected each month; information on education fees is
collected once a year and for all other goods and services once a
quarter.
Prices are collected around the 15th of each month except for
fresh fruit and vegetables for which prices are collected on Friday or
Saturday each week.
The prices used to calculate the index are those which
consumers have to pay on the pricing day. Discount or sale prices are
used if they account for a significant volume of sales.
Housing
Rent data are collected from rented dwellings with one to four bedrooms.
Specification of varieties
The specifications of items to be priced are given in terms of the
brand, make, quality, size and unit, etc.
Substitution, quality change, etc.
Special adjustments are made in order to ensure that the prices used
reflect only price changes and not changes in the quality or quantity
of a specification.
Seasonal items
No adjustments are made for seasonal variations.
Computation
The index is computed as a weighted average of six separate indices
relating to Port Moresby, Lae, Rabaul, Madang, Goroka and
Kieta/Arawa/Panguna. Each index is computed according to the Laspeyres
formula as a weighted arithmetic average with fixed base, using weights
corresponding to the base period. They are then weighted together to
obtain the index for the six urban areas combined, using weights
proportional to the urban population of the towns.
Other information
Separate indices are also published for the six urban areas.
Organisation and publication
National Statistical Office:
Statistical Bulletin, Consumer Price Index
(Port Moresby).
Idem: Statistical Bulletin, Consumer Price Indexes
, March
Quarter 1979, June Quarter 1979.
Idem: Technical Note No. 4, Consumer Price Indexes (Base Year
1977), April 1980
.