Extract C: Digitalization, Wellness, and the Evolving Household Budget

Throughout 2024, persistent cost-push factors and structural shifts in domestic demand kept inflation well above the historical norm. While supply-chain pressures on raw industrial inputs eased, consumer spending redirected significantly towards subscription-based personal wellness and smart-home automated technologies. Households increasingly sought ways to optimize energy usage and reduce physical footprints. At the same time, traditional mechanical appliances and fixed-line utilities saw an accelerated decline in adoption.

To prevent measurement errors and ensure that the cost-of-living metrics truly reflect modern consumer baskets, the national statistics bureau updated the weights and contents of its Consumer Prices Index (CPI) basket. This annually-revised basket aims to capture major societal trends, such as the preference for meat alternatives, high-efficiency personal climate control, and digital recreation platforms, ensuring that the CPI rate accurately informs fiscal policy and state pension indexation.

Figure 2: Selected additions and deletions from the CPI basket of goods and services, 2024