Samoans paid in the first month of the year for most goods and services including education according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for January 2025.

The January CPI increased by 2.7 per cent compared to January 2024 and rose by one per cent compared to December 2024.

Food and non-alcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics, and miscellaneous goods and services contributed the most to the 2.7 per cent increase in the CPI in January 2025, due to the increase in prices for food, cigarettes, paper cigarettes, and toiletry supplies.

The imported goods component of the CPI saw a one per cent increase compared to the same month last year, driven mainly by higher prices for chicken leg quarters, raw sugar, mutton flaps, spirits and toiletry supplies.

The local goods component increased by 4.7 per cent, reflecting higher prices for fresh fish, Koko Samoa, taro, and cucumber. It also went up by 1.7 per cent compared to December 2024.

In January 2025, food and non-alcoholic beverages were the largest contributors to the 2.7 per cent rise in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), contributing 2.9 percentage points to the overall increase. The key drivers of this rise were significant price increases in chicken leg quarters (up 6.1%), raw sugar (up 3.6%), taro (up 20.2%), fresh fish (up 27.4%), mutton flaps (up 18.7%), turkey wings (up 10.4%), cucumber (up 30.1%), bananas (up 34.8%), tomatoes (up 17.0%), and apples (up 19.1%).

Alcoholic beverages and tobacco were the second largest contributors with a contribution of 0.2 percentage points to the overall increase. This was primarily due to price increases in Pall Mall cigarettes (up 4.0%), paper cigarettes (up 16.7%), whisky and spirits (up to 2.1%), and Samoan kava (up 1.9%).

Miscellaneous goods and services contributed 0.1 percentage points to the CPI rise, mainly driven by higher prices for toiletry supplies (up 24.2%), diapers (up 1.4%), and hair gel (up 0.5%).

Education, restaurants and hotels, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, health, recreation and culture, furnishings, household equipment, and maintenance all contributed less than 0.1 percentage points to the CPI increase.

The main drivers of these increases were higher prices for, secondary examination fees (up 9.8%), fish and chips meal (up 2.2%), liquid gas (up to 5.1%), Amoxicillin 500mg tablets (up 4.8%), laptops (up 5.8%), and refrigerator (up to 6.8%).

Although transportation, clothing and footwear had negative contributions, with percentage-point changes of -0.6 and -0.04, respectively, the communication division remained constant at zero.