Index of household consumption of goods, August 2006

The figures display a decrease of 0.2 percent in the consumption of food, beverages and tobacco. The consumption of groceries went down by about 1 percent.

The commodity group “other commodities” increased by 0.5 percent. The figures show that the consumption of clothes and shoes increased by almost 2 percent, while the other commodities in this group developed more feebly.

The consumption of electricity was nearly unchanged from July to August.

In the same period, the consumption of cars went up, and the consumption of gasoline went down. All in all the consumption of the commodity group cars and gasoline was the same as in the previous month.

The index of commodity consumption was 4.5 percent higher this August compared to August 2005 according to the unadjusted figures. The consumption of clothes, shoes, furniture and white goods were clearly higher than 12 months before, while the consumption of electricity was lower.

Method differs from the index of retail sale

The index of commodity consumption describes the development in household consumption of goods, while the index of retail sales measures the development in retail sales. As opposed to the index of retail sales, the index of commodity consumption includes goods that are not sold in retail trade. Thus, the calculation of the index of commodity consumption is based on information from the index of retail sales in addition to information on purchases of cars, sales of petrol and oil to petrol stations and the consumption of electricity unadjusted for changes in temperature. This may result in deviations in the development of the two indices.

The index of commodity consumption uses the same definitions and methods of compilation as the quarterly national accounts, and thus serves as an indicator of household consumption of goods in the quarterly national accounts.

Timeliness is important in the release of statistics, and the index of commodity consumption may therefore have to rely on preliminary estimates in some cases. Such estimates are replaced in the subsequent release. This applies, inter alia, to figures on electricity consumption, where short-term statistics from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) are used. Later on these short-term statistics are replaced by electricity statistics from Statistics Norway. This implies that the index of commodity consumption normally will be revised in the subsequent publishing.