Price level Bonaire 15 percent higher than on Curacao

May 2, 2014 News

In 2011 the average price level on Bonaire was nearly 15 percent higher than in Curacao. On Aruba consumer products are about as expensive as in Bonaire. St. Maarten is almost 2 percent more expensive than Bonaire. This is evident from the 2011 International Comparison Program (ICP) published on April 30^th. Here, the prices of consumer products in several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are compared.

Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean/World Bank

Bermuda is by far the most expensive country in the Caribbean region, followed with great distance by the Turks and Caicos. Suriname and Belize are the two cheapest countries in the region.

Bonaire for the first time in International Comparison Program
Bonaire participated for the first time in the ICP. The Bonaire prices from 2012 were regressed to the 2011 level. More than 200 countries and territories, divided into several regions, participate in this program. Bonaire participated in the Caribbean region. St. Eustatius and Saba did not participate.
The objective of the ICP is to compare purchasing power parities and price levels between various countries. Bonaire only participated in the comparison between price levels.
The CBS provided the data that the program required to achieve comparable statistics for this project. Today, the first results were published on the level of total household spending. Half way through this year, a more detailed publication will follow.

Price Observation Caribbean
In order to do a proper price comparison, it is necessary to observe comparable products that are available in all countries and that also to a large extent are part of the normal needs of households. To this end a product catalogue was developed that is comparable between the regions. The CBS checked the prices of as many of these products as possible on Bonaire.

Source: ECLAC, Estimates of Purchasing Power Parities for Countries of the Region