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Johnson announces new CPI System to calculate Basket of Goods and Services.

PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of Economic Affairs on St. Maarten the honourable Stuart Johnson has announced that the Department of Statistics has a modernised CPI methodology and system to produce better quality price indices and detailed microdata.
The minister said on Sunday, “the new basket contains new products that are relevant on the market now that were not on the scene in the previous basket.”
This according to Minister Johnson was being worked on for some time, and since a start point had to be established, 2018 was designated as that start point. With the new system, the Statistics Department can now use internationally recognised product classifications and can seamlessly compare each year’s basket of goods. The indexation of the minimum wage, however, is a policy-level decision which is usually taken at the Ministry VSA and is not specified by a National Ordinance as is the case for the AOV. "In recognising the concerns of some members of the community, the TEATT will participate in a scheduled task force meeting this week and will assist in coming to a solution with the Ministry VSA regarding this matter collectively as government," said Johnson on Sunday.
Minister Johnson has taken due note of the concerns brought forward by the St. Maarten Anti-Poverty Platform and the St. Maarten Consumers Coalition regarding the social implications of in particular no indexation to the AOV/AWW for 2019.
Regarding the basket of goods, Johnson said many unit sizes of different products such as rice, toothpaste and other items listed in the old Basket of Goods cannot be directly compared with the items from the new 2018 basket, because these may have a bigger or smaller unit measurement and the price change cannot be compared at face value.
These incompatibilities, coupled with the small team of analysts working on this project, that a management decision was taken to focus all efforts on getting the much needed new CPI system up and running, rather than attempt to make a complicated, and possibly faulty comparison between a current (2018) CPI system and the outdated system used between 2006 to 2017.
To rectify this problem permanently the decision was taken by the Department of Statistics (STAT), an executing agency under the TEATT Ministry, not to publish a Consumer Price Index during the year 2018 which I support in the interest of an accurate reading of the basket of goods. He said the cost of living is something that the governing program of the St. Maarten United Democratic Coalition has as a priority item to address, and accurate information is the key to the government being able to make decisions that benefit the people. Minister Johnson has taken due note of the concerns brought forward by the St. Maarten Anti-Poverty Platform and the St. Maarten Consumers Coalition regarding the social implications of in particular no indexation to the AOV/AWW for 2019. The National Ordinances AOV & AWW stipulate an annual indexation takes place, from increases in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in August of the previous year compared to the same period the year before.

The Ministry TEATT recognises the inconvenience this absence of official 2018 CPI figures has caused; however, this move was unavoidable. The department started taking steps in this direction quite a few years ago, and had already decided before hurricane Irma in 2017 that based on its progress up to that time, the new base year for CPI calculations would be 2018. As a result, prices were collected in all months of 2018 according to the updated consumer Basket of Goods and Services which is now considered as the New Basis (or starting point) to compare prices going forward.

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