Engineering News 6 November 2012.

South Africa has changed the weightings in its consumer price index basket to reflect the latest spending patterns, giving a slightly lower weighting to food, while petrol and electricity weightings will rise, the statistics agency said on Tuesday.

The weighting of electricity and other fuels has doubled to 4.1% from 2.1% previously, reflecting a steady rise in electricity tariffs from state utility Eskom. Petrol will rise to 5.4% from 3.6%.

Household contents and services also dropped in weighting, to 4.9% from 6.1%, Statistics South Africa said.

The agency said the new weights would apply from January 2013.

Analysts said the changes would not make a marked difference to headline inflation, which quickened to 5.5% in September.

Stats SA said it would not recalculate previous inflation numbers.