The price of most items in Samoa rose significantly for the month of April, according to the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) released by the Samoa Bureau of Statistics.

The figures from the bureau show that Samoans paid significantly more for items including food and communication last month. The CPI for April 2023 rose 12.4 per cent compared to April 2022. This was mainly influenced by the increase in the imported goods component by 11.9 per cent from the same month last year as a result of higher prices for imported food, building materials, kerosene, household furnishing, laptop, and toiletries.

The local goods component also contributed to the increase when it went up by 13.0 per cent on a year-on-year basis, due to higher prices for local food, meals, phone calls, internet, and airline fares.

Food and non-alcoholic beverages were the largest contributors to the 12.4 per cent rise in the CPI in April 2023, with a contribution of 10.2 percentage points to the overall increase in April 2023.

The most significant drivers of this within the group were chicken leg quarters (up 26.3 per cent), flour (up 48.8 per cent), Devondale milk (up 40.2 per cent), fresh fish (up 73 per cent), koko Samoa (up 44.3 per cent), noodles (up 27.8 per cent), cooking oil (up 23.8 per cent), round pancake (up 33.3 per cent), turkey wings (up 34.7 per cent), potatoes (up 35.6 per cent), cucumber (up 33.9 per cent), Chinese cabbage (up 40.8 per cent), tomato (up 53.8 per cent), round cabbage (up  64.7 per cent) and ta’amu which increased more than three times over its average price in April 2022.

The next largest contributor was communication with a contribution of 0.7 percentage points, increasing 14.0 per cent compared to April 2022. The greatest drivers of this increase were mobile phone calling per minute increasing 27.9 per cent and internet data bundle rising 32.0 per cent.

Transport also contributed 0.5 percentage points due to the increase of 72.2 per cent in airfares (Apia-Pago-Apia) and (Apia-Auckland-Apia) up 16.8 per cent from the same month of the previous year.

The Consumer Price (CPI) measures the rate of inflation for Samoa. It is designed to measure the change in prices for the goods purchased by households in Samoa. The CPI measures the change in prices by comparing the prices for a basket of goods and services at the collection period with the price for the same goods in a base period.