Consumer Price Index (CPI)
The consumer price index (CPI) is an indicator that serves to measure the evolution of the prices of the most representative goods and services of household consumption expenditure in Colombia and provides information to calculate the cost of living in the country. Positive variations in this index correspond to consumer inflation, while negative variations are known as deflation.
The CPI measures the evolution of the prices of the different goods and services that are most consumed in Colombia, known as the consumer basket. This basket is currently made up of 443 items divided into twelve spending groups, such as food and beverages, clothing, rent, utilities, household goods, health, transportation, information and communication services, entertainment, culture, education, restaurants and hotels, and other miscellaneous goods or services. To measure this indicator, more than 55,000 sources of information are consulted monthly in 38 cities in the country, such as neighborhood stores, supermarkets, food markets, department stores, and establishments specializing in the sale of goods and the provision of services. To facilitate measurement, all prices collected are grouped together in a weighted manner (depending on their importance in the average Colombian’s spending) in this indicator, which makes it easy to track prices over time.
In Colombia, the CPI is calculated by the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE in Spanish), the institution responsible for the planning, collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination of the country’s official statistics. It is published on the fifth business day of each month and includes information on the variation of consumer prices in the country during the immediately preceding month (from the first to the last day of the month), for the year to date (from 01 January to the last day of the month of calculation), and for the last twelve months.
