Today, the Minister for the Cabinet Office the Hon. Wayne L. Furbert, JP, MP, released the April 2020 Consumer Price Index report (attached).
The Minister explained, “In April 2020 consumers paid the same as they did for the CPI basket of goods and services in April 2019. Between March 2020 and April 2020 the average cost of all goods and services increased 0.1 percentage points.”
Minister Furbert added, “It should be noted however that some price data used to produce the CPI index was not collected in April 2020 due to some unavailable goods and services, non-response from open stores and the temporary store closures caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic ( See Table 1 on page four of the publication). As a result of COVID-19, in-person field collection was suspended and, where possible, prices were collected via alternative methods such as online and email.
“Six of the nine sectors in April 2020 had missing prices which were imputed: Rent, Clothing & Footwear, Household Goods, and Services and Supplies, Transport & Foreign Travel, Education, Recreation, Entertainment & Reading and Health & Personal Care. Table 2, on page five of the publication, provides March 2020 and April 2019 price metadata for comparison. All missing prices were imputed by targeted mean imputation and the carry forward method.
“The Health & Personal Care sector was the largest contributor to the year-over-year change, increasing 3.2 per cent. In addition, the Transport & Foreign Travel sector (-5.0 per cent) and the Rent sector (-1.8 per cent) impacted strongly on the annual rate of inflation.
“Between March 2020 and April 2020 the Tobacco & Liquor sector rose 0.8 per cent, as the average price of wine and beer increased 17.2 per cent and 0.9 per cent, respectively. On average, food prices rose 0.8 per cent for the month. Among the items contributing to the increase were fresh & frozen spare ribs (+10.2 per cent), fresh & frozen stewing beef (+6.6 per cent) and pineapples (+5.6 per cent).”
The April 2020 Consumer Price Index is available online at www.gov.bm/bermuda-business-statistics.