BPS adds more goods in calculating inflation<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The Central Bureau of Statistics said yesterday
\nthat it will take a greater number of commodities into account in
\nmeasuring the country's inflation rate.<\/p>\n
"Right now we use 220 different commodities in our
\nmeasurement, but we will include more commodities in 1997-98,"
\nthe bureau's chief, Sugito, told reporters.<\/p>\n
He added that the survey of living costs to collect data on
\nconsumption patterns will be conducted every five years instead
\nof ten years as it has been done in the past.<\/p>\n
"A five-year interval is considered more adequate to reflect
\nthe prevailing changes in the consumption patterns of the
\npeople," Soegito said.<\/p>\n
He did not elaborate on how many more commodities will be
\nincluded in the inflation rate calculation.<\/p>\n
The bureau said Indonesia's inflation last year reached 9.24
\npercent, while its economic growth rose by seven percent.<\/p>\n
Sugito explained that to measure the inflation rate, the
\nbureau takes into account the price developments of various
\ncommodities in the capital cities of the country's 27 provinces.<\/p>\n
The prices of those commodities -- usually grouped under
\nfoodstuff, housing, clothing and services -- are subsequently
\nindexed under a concept called Consumer Price Index (CPI) using
\nthe total number of households in each of the capital cities as
\nthe weights.<\/p>\n
The CPI for each city is the price index of a group of goods
\nand services consumed by most households in the respective city
\nwhich is specified by a government survey on cost of living.<\/p>\n
Inflation is considered a sensitive issue in Indonesia, where,
\naccording to official figures of 1993, 13.6 percent of the total
\npopulation live below the poverty line.<\/p>\n
The poverty line is drawn on the basis of a minimum daily
\ncalorie intake of 2,100 and a certain quantity of non-food
\nconsumer goods and services.<\/p>\n
Both the bureau and the government claim that the bureau's
\nfigures are accurate and never produced out of political
\npressure.<\/p>\n
"Counting inflation is a complicated business and it is not
\nthat easy to engineer the figures," Sugito said. (hdj)<\/p>",
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