Index of household consumption of goods, May 2006

The consumption bundle “other goods” increased by 3.7 percent from the previous month, according to the seasonally adjusted figures. This was mainly due to the consumption of clothing.

There was an increase in consumption of groceries of 1.7 percent, and the consumption of vehicles and petrol increased by 3.0 percent from April to May.

The consumption of electricity and heating fuels went down by 6.1 percent from April to May.

The unadjusted volume index of commodity consumption was 6.8 percent higher in May 2006 than in May 2005. It is mainly consumption of “other goods” that contributed to this increase.

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.