Index of household consumption of goods, June 2004

The seasonally adjusted figures show that all groups of consumer goods increased, and it is consumption of other goods that grew most by 4.9 per cent from May to June 2004. In the same period consumption of food, beverages and tobacco rose by 3.4 per cent, while consumption of electricity and heating fuels was 3.3 per cent higher in June than in May. Purchases of vehicles and petrol show only

a small increase.

The transportation strike effective most of May increased the consumption of some consumer goods over expectations in the month of June.

The unadjusted volume index of commodity consumption was 9.7 per cent higher in June 2004 than in June 2003.

The unadjusted consumption of other goods increased by 15.4 per cent from June last year to June this year. Purchases of vehicles and petrol grew by 9.1 per cent, while consumption of electricity and heating fuels increased by 4.2 per cent in the same period. The consumption of food, beverages and tobacco increased by 2.6 per cent.

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. 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.