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For the 2011 calendar year an inflation rate of 6.0 per cent was recorded for
All Jamaica ‘All Divisions’. This increase was 5.7 percentage points below the
11.7 per cent that was obtained in the 2010 calendar year. In 2009, it was 10.2
per cent while each of the years 2007 and 2008 moved up by 16.8 per cent.
The factors that contributed to this rate of increase were fluctuations in
world oil prices, the exchange rate for the Jamaican dollar vis-à-vis the
United States dollar, sugar prices on the world
market and the absence of bad weather conditions such as flooding, drought and
hurricanes throughout 2011.
The first quarter of 2011 recorded the lowest quarterly movement of 0.5 per
cent. By the second quarter of the year there was a 1.5 percentage point rise to
2.0 per cent. In the third quarter the All Divisions – All Items movement was
2.1 per cent. In the fourth quarter there was a decline of 0.8 percentage point
over the increase in the third quarter as an increase of 1.3 per cent was
recorded.
A look at the semi-annual movements for 2011 showed that there
was a 2.5 per cent increase in the first half.
This was 0.9 percentage point lower than the 3.4 per cent that prevailed
in the second half.
The index for the division ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and
Other Fuels’ had the highest movement in 2011, the only division that
experienced double digit inflation. The division ‘Restaurants and Accommodation
Services’ recorded the lowest rate of increase – 2.3 per cent for the period
that is under review.
The three regions for which the Consumer Price Index is computed
are the Greater Kingston Metropolitan Area (GKMA), Other Urban Centres (OUC) and
the Rural Areas. Similar to the 2010 occurrence, the GKMA, with its inflation
rate of 7.0 per cent, had the highest regional movement. This was 1.4 percentage
points above the 5.6 per cent in the OUC and 1.5 percentage points higher than
the 5.5 per cent in the Rural Areas.
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