Gap between price measures narrowing
THE Hongkong Coalition of Service Industries' inflation index, the Consumer Services Price Index (CSPI), moved closer to the Government's official Consumer Price Index (CPI) in June, with the CSPI showing a 10.2 per cent annual growth for the month, compared with 8.6 per cent for the CPI.
Chan Wai-kwan, acting director of the Hongkong General Chamber of Commerce, said: ''The gap between the two sets of figures has narrowed from about three per cent at the beginning of 1993 to about 1.6 per cent at the moment. I think that by the end of this year it could have fallen to about one per cent.
''The gap is narrowing because the CPI is increasing while the CSPI is stabilising,'' he said.
Compared with figures for May, the CSPI(A) and CSPI(B) indices for June have not risen as much as the official CPI(A) and CPI(B) indices.
The CSPI was developed by the Hongkong Coalition of Service Industries in order to indicate specific price movements in the service sector, and make it clearer where price increases occur.
The index comprises the service items from the official CPI.
The CSPI makes up 39.26 per cent of the weighting of the CPI(A), 43.05 per cent of the CPI(B), and 50.65 per cent of the Hang Seng CPI.
