DOHA: Prices rose 2.7 percent in the country in 2015 fuelled mainly by the rising cost of education, house rent, communications and transport.
Education became 18 percent costlier in the year, mainly burdening limited-income families with school-going children. The year also saw tobacco prices surge by 6.3 percent, although tobacco use is gradually being discouraged. Tobacco’s share in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket is the lowest, at 0.27 percent among a dozen items. House rents (which are referred to in the CPI basket as ‘housing’ and clubbed with cooking gas, power and water) increased 3.4 percent last year. The rent and its accompaniments have the highest weight in the CPI basket at 21.89 percent.
This, in simple words, means that a household spending QR10,000 a month, for example, spends roughly QR2,189 on average on house rent, gas, electricity and water. Communications (phones) and transport became 3.2 percent and 3.1 percent, expensive in the year, respectively. The cost of food and beverages increased negligibly (by just 0.7 percent) year-on-year last December, CPI figures released by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics for December 2915 show.
Eating out (restaurants), medical services, clothing and footwear became cheaper in 2015, albeit marginally. Eating out seems to be so popular with families, particularly, that its share in the CPI basket (6.08 percent) is more than that of education.
Looking at monthly changes in the CPI (November to December 2015), food, clothing, furniture and miscellaneous goods became cheaper.
The Peninsula
