Index of household consumption of goods, March 2006

All in all the consumption of food, beverages and tobacco increased by 0.7 per cent from February to March. The consumption of groceries and non-alcoholic beverages increased, while the consumption of beverages with alcohol decreased slightly.

The consumption bundle “other goods” increased by 0.8 per cent from the previous month, according to the seasonally adjusted figures. This was mainly due to the consumption of furniture and white goods, and the consumption of shoes and clothes.

The consumption of electricity and heating fuels increased by approximately 5 per cent from February to March. This could be related to the cold weather in March. The temperatures were below normal almost all over the country.

Note that because of difficulties related to the seasonally adjustment concerning Easter's effect on trade, the indexes of March and April are somewhat more uncertain than other months.

The unadjusted volume index of commodity consumption was 7.6 per cent higher in March 2006 than in March 2005. It is mainly consumption of “other goods” that contributes to this growth, whiles low consumption of food and beverages pulled the index downwards.

Method differs from the index of retail sale

The index of commodity consumption describes the development in household consumption of goods, while the index of retail sales measures the development in retail sales. As opposed to the index of retail sales, the index of commodity consumption includes goods that are not sold in retail trade. Thus, the calculation of the index of commodity consumption is based on information from the index of retail sales in addition to information on purchases of cars, sales of petrol and oil to petrol stations and the consumption of electricity unadjusted for changes in temperature. This may result in deviations in the development of the two indices.

The index of commodity consumption uses the same definitions and methods of compilation as the quarterly national accounts, and thus serves as an indicator of household consumption of goods in the quarterly national accounts.

Timeliness is important in the release of statistics, and the index of commodity consumption may therefore have to rely on preliminary estimates in some cases. Such estimates are replaced in the subsequent release. This applies, inter alia, to figures on electricity consumption, where short-term statistics from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) are used. Later on these short-term statistics are replaced by electricity statistics from Statistics Norway. This implies that the index of commodity consumption normally will be revised in the subsequent publishing.