Are C.P.I. Figures a True Reflection of On the Ground Situations?

Diana Castillo-Trejo

According to the Acting Director General Diana Castillo-Trejo, the price collection basket used to determine the Consumer Price Index is an old model. The updated model was not used and it begs the question: are the C.P.I. figures a true representation of what consumers pay on the ground?

Diana Castillo-Trejo, Acting Director General, S.I.B.

“We have already developed an updated basket for the consumer price index. That was done on the household expenditure survey that was done last year. That survey was a huge survey, collected extensive data from households on very detailed spending patterns. That has been put together and we were suppose to go in the field to do the first round of price collection for that basket this month but unfortunately because of the situation with the increase of cases of COVID 19 on the ground we were not able to go out in all the areas that we need to go out. So that has been postponed tentatively for next month but before the end of this year we will have an update CPI series based on a more update basket.”