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Corporate services prices: publication of prototype index
The introduction of the quarterly publication of price indices for a range of corporate (i.e. business to business) services, including a prototype top-level index
This article marks the introduction of the quarterly publication of price indices for a range of corporate (i.e. business to business) services, including a prototype top-level index. This represents a milestone in the challenging project to measure the prices of services such as road freight, business telecommunications and employment agencies and, ultimately, others such as accountancy, computer services and banking.
The article summarises the progress made to date and outlines the project's aims which include the introduction of an National Statistics First Release by the end of 2001. The results help to fill a gap in the monitoring of price changes in the UK economy, sitting alongside retail (or consumer) price indices and producer price indices. The results are also for use as deflators in the calculation of GDP (8 of the indices developed so far are already used) and the Index of Services.
Results for 21 indices are currently available. These are weighted together to produce a top-level index that, so far, represents about 45 per cent of the corporate services sector.
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