Prices & Cost of Living
What households actually pay — the basket, the 14 essential lines under standing watch, and the mechanism that turns a border cost into a shelf price.
Headline CPI is 3.1% with the food basket at 4.2% — housing, water and energy carry the largest single contribution at 32.1% of the basket. Nothing on the 14-line essential watchlist sits above the 8% critical threshold. The weighted duty rate across that basket is 5.4%, and a 10% rise in landed cost still reaches shelves as roughly 6.4% five to seven weeks later.
How a landed cost becomes a shelf price
How a cost increase at the border becomes a shelf price — and where in that chain the government can act.
A 10% rise in landed cost reaches the shelf as roughly 6.4%, 5–7 weeks later. Duty and VAT are the only two stages the government controls; margin structure absorbs the rest.
Landed at the border
CIF value plus freight and insurance, as declared.
Duty and VAT applied
Tariff at the chapter rate, then 10% VAT on the duty-paid value.
Government lever sits here
Distribution and inter-island freight
Wholesaler margin plus the feeder leg to the Family Islands.
Shelf price
Retail margin. 5–7 weeks after the border.
In the pipeline now — cleared, not yet on shelves
These consignments have already paid the higher landed cost. The shelf increase is inflation that has happened but is not yet visible.
| Commodity | Cleared | Landed cost increase | Expected shelf increase | Reaches shelves |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cooking oil | wk 27 | ↗ +14.2% | ↗ +9.1% | wk 33 |
| Rice | wk 28 | ↗ +9.6% | ↗ +6.1% | wk 34 |
| Chicken | wk 28 | ↗ +11.8% | ↗ +7.6% | wk 35 |
| Tinned vegetables | wk 29 | ↗ +7.4% | ↗ +4.7% | wk 35 |
| Bottled water | wk 29 | ↗ +6.1% | ↗ +3.9% | wk 36 |
| LPG (cooking gas) | wk 30 | ↗ +18.5% | ↗ +11.8% | wk 36 |
| Weighted average still in the pipeline | ↗ +7.2% | through wk 36 | ||
Customs declaration system · Retail price survey · Pass-through model 4 Aug 2026 · 09:00 Landed cost increases taken from cleared declarations; shelf increases are the landed increase multiplied by the standing 64.0% pass-through rate at a 5–7 week lag.