Australia Consumer Price Index (CPI) q/q

Australia Consumer Price Index (CPI) q/q measures changes in the prices of goods and services from the consumer perspective in the reported quarter compared to the previous one.

The CPI reflects changes in the prices of a fixed basket based on average expenditure of metropolitan households. The basket consists of groups of goods and services, which account for a larger share of household expenditures. The basket contents is determined based on a sample survey of 8,000 households from 8 largest cities. Basket positions are ranked by weight significance. The basket currently consists of 11 groups, such as food and non-alcoholic beverages, health, clothing and footwear and others, which divided into 33 subgroups (for example: fruits and vegetables, footwear, medical and dental services) and 87 expenditure classes (fruit, beer, dental services, etc.).

Data on retail prices are collected from various outlets (supermarkets, hotels, stores, car dealerships, service industry companies) and online stores. The prices for CPI calculation include all taxes. The CPI is calculated quarterly using about 900,000 price data sets.

The CPI is not an absolute, but a relative indicator. It reflects the change in prices in relation to the base year (currently set to years 2011/12). The index benchmark in the base year is set to 100. Thus, if the index value is 110 points, this means that prices have risen by 10% as compared to the base period.

The index is used by the government and economists in the estimation of the Australian economy inflation. Consumer inflation is an important factor influencing the development of the country's economic and financial system. Also, the Reserve Bank of Australia analyzes the behavior of the consumer price index when adopting the interest rate decision. Therefore, the index growth can have a positive effect on the Australian dollar quotes.