Rob Southey,  Head of Asset Consulting, Momentum Consultants & Actuaries

From the beginning of 2025 the basket of goods that is used to determine inflation in South Africa changed. A presentation from StatsSA shows the detail of the changes and which goods and services are in, and which are out. You can view StatsSA’s full presentation here. For this short note, I have looked at what’s in and what’s out of the basket – and there’s some interesting inclusions!

A quick background on the basket and weights:

• The basket is based on data from sources such as the 2022/23 Income and Expenditure Survey, the SARB, and point-of-sale records from retail chain stores. It then takes a while to convert it into the new basket. SA re-weights the basket every 5 years (in the US it is done annually).

• A weight is attached to each product in the basket of goods and services.

So here’s what’s in and what’s out:

Below is a summary allocation of the various categories:

ENDS