Consumer Prices Dropped 0.8% in 2019, Reports SCAD

Abu Dhabi: Consumer prices declined by 0.8% in 2019 compared with 2018. As the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report of Statistics Centre – Abu Dhabi (SCAD) indicates, the CPI averaged 110.7 points in 2019, down 0.8% from 111.6 points in 2018.

Comparison of monthly price data shows a 0.7% fall in the CPI to 109.6 points in December 2019, down from 110.3 points in November 2019. The index also dropped by 1.0% in December 2019 compared with December 2018.

SCAD’s CPI report presents the contribution of each of the main 12 expenditure groups to the overall change in consumer prices during 2019. The groups are categorized according to the International Classification of Individual Consumption according to Purpose (COICOP). The largest contributor to the overall decrease in consumer prices during 2019 compared with 2018 was the ‘Housing, water, electricity, gas and fuel’ group, which contributed 140.7 percentage points to the overall decrease in the CPI in 2019 compared with 2018, as the group’s prices dropped by 3.7%.

The ‘Transport’ group decreased by 5.3% during 2019 compared with the year 2018, contributing 93.2 percentage points to the overall decrease in consumer prices during 2019. The ‘Food and beverages’ group contributed 29.6 percentage points to the overall decrease in the CPI during 2019 compared with 2018 as the group’s prices declined by 2.1%.

On the other hand, the prices of the ‘Recreation and culture’ group increased by 24.6% during 2019 compared with 2018. The group detracted 132.5 percentage points from the overall fall in the CPI in 2019.