The CPI for June is recorded as 7.7% which is more than double the amount in May(3.8%). According to TheStar, this is the highest in the past 27 years(highest in my life)! Obviously this has everything to do with the increase in petrol prices which led to increase in electricity tariffs.
Looking back 27 years ago, the CPI was at 10.8% in April 1981. The relation we can get here is that during Tun Mahathir’s time as a Prime Minister, the CPI index was never at an alarming rate.
However, the question remains as to what are the items that are put together to form the basket in order to calculate the CPI and is it truly reflective of our current price of goods? Any thoughts or pointers are very welcomed.
3 responses so far ↓
Viknesh // 24 July 2008 at 10:18 am |
The government self-contradicting themselves again. In the debate, our information minister said that the prices of petrol had to rise to prevent inflation from swinging out of control. And now our minister of domestic trade says the cause of inflation is due to the rise of petrol prices.
The statistics obtained from the national statistics department is also appalling, as it only reveals the indices without explaining the methodology on how these values were calculated.
sohas // 24 July 2008 at 10:24 am |
Yes – we need to know the methodology that they used so that we can choose to believe it or scrutinize it, and I believe the government does not want us to do the latter.
If they do not apply a constant methodology and/or basket of goods in determining their indices, it’s definitely unreliable. Now, which department is supposed to expose this numbers? We are still lacking in transparency…
Radzian // 28 July 2008 at 5:10 pm |
Sohas,
check out http://www.statistics.gov.my , government has all the data over there. There is transperancy up to a certain level.