Despite a revised basket of commodities, Jamaicans continue to spend a lot of their money on ‘food and non-alcoholic beverages’, which remains the most weighted division in a basket of other goods used in determining the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

“When looking at the weights, the largest division continues to be ‘food and non-alcoholic beverages’ and there is a slight decline in its weight compared to that of the previous survey. Its weight in the current survey is 35.8 per cent while in the old CPI it was 37.5 per cent,” said Carol Coy, director general of the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) while speaking at a digital press briefing on Wednesday.

For the month of May, STATIN had said that inflation rose to 0.1 per cent largely due to the 1.1 per cent increase in the heavily weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages division.

Coy said that weights are assigned to each division based on a percentage share of its expenditure to the total expenditure.

“The second-largest division continues to be housing, water, electricity and gas, in this new CPI its weight is now 17.5 per cent and this is an increase from 12.8 per cent in the previous basket. The third-largest division is transport—its weight is now 11 per cent down from 12.8 per cent.”

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business-report-daily-biz/jamaicans-continue-to-spend-more-on-food-and-beverages-statin_198644