CPI up in February

Measures taken by the Government to limit the corona outbreak have implications for the CPI also for February. Services that were still closed or had a consumption close to zero, such as sports events were estimated with the change in the all-item CPI from January to February. Services with clear seasonal variation in prices such as international flights and package holidays had their price development estimated based on seasonal factors. For more information, see Corona consequences for CPI.

As one of the measures related to the corona situation, the reduced value added tax (VAT) rate was decreased from 12 per cent to 6 per cent from April 1, 2020. Reduced VAT rates apply to personal transports, hotel accommodations as well as access to cinema, sporting events and amusement parks. In addition, air passenger tax is temporarily exempt. In CPI-AT and CPI-ATE, this is treated so that the services related to non-availability due to the corona situation are not affected by the changed VAT rate nor flight passenger tax, while for the services that consumption has been taken place a reduced VAT and air passenger tax has been measured.

atistics Norway publishes each month a seasonally adjusted all-item CPI and all-item CPI-ATE. The seasonal adjustment during the corona crisis is made in a way that the figures from the period which is affected by the crisis are not included in the data for calculating the seasonal pattern. Technically, in the seasonal adjustment routine, this is done by specifying the period as the extreme value. Statistics Norway's seasonal adjustment of all-item CPI and all-item CPI-ATE is in line with recommendations from Eurostat.