From gas to streaming: What’s in South Africa’s new inflation basket?

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The new basket now includes 71 products, such as basmati rice, chicken nuggets, ready-made meals, and gas in cylinders, while 53 items like ready-mix flour, frozen chips, and ground coffee have been removed.

Key updates focus on:

• Education (school uniforms, transport, and after-school services),


• Health (clinic services, optometrists, physiotherapists), and


• Technology (streaming services, modems).

E-hailing services and toy building bricks have been added, while items like teddy bears, digital cameras, and landline fees are removed.

The changes, based on the 2022/23 Income and Expenditure Survey, reflect shifts in consumer behavior, including load-shedding impacts.

Readjustment of the weights

Each item in the CPI basket is assigned a weight that reflects its significance in calculating the overall inflation rate. This weight indicates the proportion of household spending allocated to that product, shown as a percentage. Products with a higher weight have a greater influence on the final inflation rate.

The IES survey provides the key data for determining the weights. Other sources, like national accounts on household spending and additional data from retail stores and regulations, are also used.

The highest weight category in the CPI is housing & utilities. This includes municipal services, levies for sectional-title complexes, actual rent paid by tenants and owners’ equivalent rent. The new weight is 24,1%, slightly down from 24,5% in the 2019 weights.

The share for actual rentals increases to 4,4% from 3,5%, while owners’ equivalent rent drops to 11,2% from 13,0%. Electricity charges decrease to 3,4% from 3,6%.

Added to this:

• The weight for food & non-alcoholic beverages increases to 18,2% from 17,1%. This means that South Africans are spending proportionally more on food products than they did in 2019.
• Cereal products, which include staples such as maize meal and bread, increase to 4,1% from 3,2%. The weight for meat decreases slightly to 5,1% from 5,4%.
• Transport declines to 13,9% from 14,4%. The biggest reason for this decline is a reduction in the weight for fuel that shrank to 3,9% from 4,8%. However, the weight for passenger transport services increases to 2,9% from 2,1%. Despite the overall decline, the transport category has the third-highest weight in the basket.
• Consumers in South Africa are spending proportionally more on telecommunications services, which include cellphone data and calls, and internet services. The weight for the information & communication category increases to 5,5% from 3,9%.
• Insurance decreases to 8,4% from 9,9%. The decline is largely due to a softer weight for health insurance (medical aid).