Index of household consumption of goods, February 2003

The unadjusted volume index of commodity consumption was 2.7 per cent higher in February 2003 than in February 2002.

The seasonally adjusted consumption of electricity and heating fuels rose by 3.8 per cent. Unadjusted, the growth in February 2003 from February 2002 was 6.7 per cent. While consumption of heating fuels pulls the unadjusted growth figures for this component up, it is the consumption of electricity that increases the seasonally adjusted growth figures from January to February. The purchase of vehicles and petrol also showed a strong seasonally adjusted development, with a growth of 2.5 per cent from January to February. In the same period consumption of food, beverages and tobacco decreased by 0.5 per cent, while the consumption of other goods increased by 0.4 percent.

Revisions of the indices

This publishing of the index of commodity consumption is based on new national accounts figures for the year 2000, published on the 20th of March. This entails changes in the weights, producing revised development of the indices. Furthermore, the current revision of the index of retail sales also contributes to the changes. Since Statistics Norway emphasises timeliness, the index of commodity consumption in some cases has to rely on preliminary estimates, which are subsequently replaced in the next publishing. This applies among others to consumption of electricity, where the Norwegian water resources and energy directorate's short-term statistics have been utilised. This implies that the index of commodity consumption normally will be revised in the subsequent publishing each month.

Method differs from the index of retail sale

The index of commodity consumption aims at describing the development in the households' consumption of goods, while the index of retail sales is an index measuring the development in retail sales. As opposed to the index of retail sales, the index of commodity consumption also includes goods not sold in retail trade, it is based on sales of additional industries and calculated with a weighting consistent with the share of the sales actually allocated to the households. This can result in deviations in the development of the two indices. The calculation of the index of commodity consumption is based on information from the index of retail sales. In addition, the index of commodity consumption uses information about purchases of cars, sales of petrol and oil to petrol stations and consumption of electricity unadjusted for changes in temperature.

The index of commodity consumption uses the same definitions and nearly the same methods of compilation as the Quarterly National Accounts. The index of commodity consumption is thus an indicator of household consumption of goods in the Quarterly National Accounts. The components of the index of commodity consumption are individually seasonally adjusted.