Johannesburg - Statistics South Africa said on Thursday it would revise both the consumer and inflation baskets more regularly to reflect consumer expenditure trends and changes at production level.
The producer price index (PPI) basket will be updated annually with effect from 2014, while the consumer price index (CPI) basket is to be revised every three years, with the next re-weighting from January 2013.
“This will ensure the PPI index reflects changes in the distribution of production in the economy as soon as source data is available," Stats SA said.
Currently, both baskets are revised every five years and after the last revisions, the PPI basket was heavily dominated by commodities, weakening its link with CPI.
Stats SA said it had not determined how often the base year would change but it could be every three to five years.
Stats SA will do away with the "all goods" PPI and break it down into five industry PPIs: agriculture, mining, electricity, intermediate manufactured goods and final manufactured goods. Publication of exports and imports will continue.
On CPI, the stats agency said it would introduce a new way of calculating core inflation that excludes highest and lowest price changes each month.