Index of household consumption of goods, July 2004

Seasonally adjusted figures show that purchases of vehicles and petrol increased by 0.7 per cent

from June to July 2004. The other groups of consumer goods experienced a decreased in the same period. Consumption of other goods had the largest decrease, at 3.2 per cent, while consumption of food, beverages and tobacco was 0.5 per cent lower in July than in June. In the same period, consumption of electricity and heating fuels showed only a small decrease of 0.2 per cent.

The unadjusted volume index of commodity consumption was 3.4 per cent higher in July 2004 than in July 2003.

The unadjusted consumption of other goods increased by 6.0 per cent from July last year to July this year. Consumption of electricity and heating fuels increased by 3.5 per cent in the same period, while purchases of vehicles and petrol grew by 2.7 per cent. The consumption of food, beverages and tobacco was approximately the same in July 2004 as it was in July 2003.

Method differs from the index of retail sale

The index of commodity consumption aims to describe the development in the households' consumption of goods, while the index of retail sales is an index measuring the development in retail sales. The index of commodity consumption is more comprehensive than the index of retail sales. It is based on sales in 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 mainly 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. Each component of the index of commodity consumption is seasonally adjusted. Because timeliness is important in Statistics Norway's statistics, the index of commodity consumption has to rely on preliminary estimates in some instances. Such estimates are replaced in the next publishing. Among others, this applies to consumption of electricity, where the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate's short-term statistics are used. This implies that the index of commodity consumption normally will be revised in the subsequent publishing each month.