According to JIS News, the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) reports that the inflation rate for September 2021 was 2.3 percent.
Director-General, Carol Coy, said that the out-turn was largely due to a 3.0 percent increase in food and non-alcoholic beverages, the heaviest weighted division in the consumer price index (CPI).
“This is the largest increase recorded for this division since the new CPI basket was introduced in April 2020,” she said, during STATIN’s digital quarterly media briefing recently.
Ms. Coy informed that the increase in the food and non-alcoholic beverages index was due mainly to a 3.1 percent increase in the “food” group.
“The class ‘vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses’ increased by 9.9 percent. This increase resulted from higher prices for some agricultural produce such as tomato, cabbage, carrot and sweet pepper,” she indicated.
Other notable increases recorded in the food group were for the categories fruits and nuts, up 4.3 percent; meat and other parts of slaughtered animals, fish and seafood, and oils and fats, up 0.9 percent; and cereals and cereal products, up 0.6 percent.
Also contributing was an 8.1 percent increase in the index for the ‘Transport’ division.
Ms. Coy told journalists that this was due to the 15 percent increase in bus, route taxi, and hackney carriage fares granted by the Government, noting that “this movement was, however, tempered by lower petrol prices”.
Additionally, she said the division ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other Fuels’ increased by 0.8 percent, largely due to increased electricity, water, and sewerage rates.
Meanwhile, the ‘Education’ division moved up by 2.4 percent, due to a rise in tuition fees at the start of the 2021/22 academic year.
“The point-to-point inflation rate (September 2020-September 2021) was 8.2 percent. This was influenced by the point-to-point inflation rate for the divisions ‘Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages’, up 10.2 percent, ‘Transport’, up 13 percent, and ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other Fuels’, up 6.6 percent,” Ms. Coy said.
Readers Bureau, Contributor
Edited by Jesus Chan
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