Average inflation in Kazakhstan

Measures the change in the price of a representative basket of goods and services bought by Kazakh households. It is published by the Bureau of National Statistics and is the country's main gauge of inflation.

Built from a regular price survey across a wide sample of outlets and cities, weighting each item by its share in household spending on an index with a base year of 100. Average annual inflation is the mean of the year's year-on-year changes.

Prices drive consumption, savings and purchasing power, and are the key reference for the National Bank of Kazakhstan when setting interest rates. A hotter-than-expected reading tends to point to rate rises and pressure on the tenge.

It captures only the defined basket, not the whole economy, and Kazakhstan's heavy weighting of energy and food makes it volatile. For the underlying trend, core inflation, which strips out energy and unprocessed food, is watched instead.