The share of Consumer Price Index (CPI) 5-digit items growing above the mid-point inflation target of 4.5% has fallen below 50%, both when considering the number of detailed CPI components at 5 digit level or the combined weight in the index of such items. 5-Digit CPI includes consumer price indices at category grouping such as ‘Fruit’, ‘Beer’ or ‘Fuel’. The decline since the recent early 2023 peak marks a significant development in the inflation landscape, signaling that inflation pressures may be easing across a broader range of goods and services. However, there is still uncertainty around this judgement, with Codera’s core inflation measure, CPI-Common, suggesting that there remains more broad-based inflation pressure than implied by the Statistics SA core measure of underlying inflation and its trimmed mean measure.
Compiled by Oliver Guest
