Saipan CPI numbers down in Q4 of 2013

The cost of consumer goods on Saipan went down during the fourth quarter of 2013, while those of Tinian and Rota went up, according to a Consumer Price Index report from the Department of Commerce released in October this year.

The Saipan CPI for the period of October and December 2013 decreased to 112.1 compared to the 112.4 recorded from July to September 2013.

This means that a market basket of goods and services that cost $100 during the 2008 base period cost $112.1 in the final three months of last year, which translates to a $12.1 increase.

Transportation recorded the most dramatic drop in cost as it went down from 127.3 in the third quarter of 2013 to 126.5 in the fourth quarter of the same year.

Housing and utilities and other good and services represented the second biggest drop for the quarter as both decreased by 0.2 percentage points. Housing and utilties dropped from 103.7 to 103.5, while other good and services decreased from 113.7 to 113.5 quarter to quarter.

Recreation, meanwhile, went down 0.1 percentage points from 103.1 to 103.

The prices for food (112), alcoholic beverages (116.6), apparel (94.3), medical care (128.3), and education and communication (94.5) remained steady from quarter to quarter.

Tinian, Rota CPI up

The Tinian CPI for the period of October and December 2013, meanwhile, inched a percentage point up from 114.8 in the third quarter of 2013 to 114.9 in the fourth quarter of the same year.

Education and communication increased by 0.4 percentage points from 100.6 to 101, while housing and utilities and food went up—from 125.4 to 125.7 to the former and from 103.7 to 103.8 for the latter.

The prices of alcoholic beverages (106.5), apparel (87.2), transportation (119), medical care (140.9), recreation (109.2), and other good and services (108.7) were the same from the thrid quarter of 2013 to the fourth of 2013.

CPI for Rota recorded the most dramatic increase Comonnwealth-wide in the fourth quarter of 2013 as it rose from 109.9 from July to September 2013 to 110.3 from October to December 2013.

The biggest culprit in the increase in the island’s CPI is alcoholic beverages, which jumped 13.3 percentage points from 112.7 to 127.7.

Food had the second biggest increase in percentage points from 105.5 to 110.5, while other goods and services and apparel went up 0.5 (113.6-114.1) and 0.1 (92.6-92.7) percentage points, respectively.

Housing and utilities (110.3-109.7), transportation (120-117.4), and recreation (98.8-98.7) posted decreases from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2013.

Education and communication (78.7) and medical care (78.7) were unchanged from quarter to quarter.

The CNMI CPI is designed to measure changes in prices of commodities and services normally purchased by the community. Like the U.S. CPI, it is based on the concept of representative “market basket”—a sample of goods and services that the consumer purchases. The CPI was first developed during the early part of 1977, was initially rebased in 2003 before being rebased again in 2008.

Commerce’s Central Statistics Division prepared the CPI report for the fourth quarter of 2013. It said while the previous CPI collected price data from 18 different outlets, the revised CPI expanded the outlet sample dramatically to roughly 170 different retail outlets on Saipan, 30 on Tinian, and 60 on Rota—all geographically dispersed.

CSD said this substantially larger outlet sample will ensure that the retail price data are collected from a wide variety of outlets dispersed through the three islands.