The cost of goods and services consumed by a Venezuelan family continued to increase in September. The Cedice Basket, which brings together 61 products and services for a household of three people, reached 833,822.94 bolivars, equivalent to 974.48 dollars per month, according to the Public Expenditure Observatory (OGP) of Cedice Libertad.
The amount is equivalent to 4.06 comprehensive reference salariescalculated at 205,488.40 bolivars. According to the report, this implies allocating “the equivalent of a full salary per week only to cover essential needs”, an additional pressure on household budgets.
The observatory calculated that prices increased 12.05% in bolivars and 3.67% in dollars during September. With this result, the accumulated inflation between January and September reached 242.87%, according to the organization’s measurement.
Food had an important weight in the monthly increase, with variations of 14.63% in national currency and 6.06% in dollars. However, the greatest increase among the items evaluated corresponded to perfumery and personal care, whose prices rose 16.15% in bolivars and 7.47% in foreign currency.
Valencia recorded the highest prices
The evolution of prices was not uniform in the three cities included in the study. Valencia led the monthly variation, with an increase of 14.36% in bolivars and 5.81% in dollars. In Caracas, the increase was 11.48% in national currency and 3.14% in foreign currency, while Maracaibo registered increases of 10.27% and 2.03%, respectively.
The difference was also reflected in the cost of the family basket. In Valencia it reached 875,083.36 bolivars, equivalent to 1,022.70 dollars. Maracaibo came in second place, with 855,829.10 bolivars ($1,000.20), and Caracas presented the lowest amount of the three cities, with 770,556.32 bolivars ($900.54).
In the rest of the items, recreation and leisure registered increases of 15.11% in bolivars and 6.50% in dollars, while transportation rose 10.97% in national currency and 2.67% in foreign currency. Services increased 8.41% in bolivars and 0.31% in dollars.
Restaurants were the only item on the list that showed a decrease in foreign currency: their prices rose 6.23% in bolivars, but fell 1.71% in dollars.
Inflation projections for the end of 2026
The Cedice OGP foresees that the accumulated inflation at the end of 2026 is between 370% and 540% in bolivars, while in dollars it could be between 15% and 43%.
“Achieving the expected inflation ceiling in national currency would require an average of 23% monthly price increases in the last quarter, almost doubling the current rate, while the result in foreign currencies will depend, among other things, on the behavior of exchange rate costs,” they say.
The projections reflect the uncertainty about the evolution of prices in the last months of the year and the behavior of the exchange market, which affects the costs expressed in bolivars and dollars.
Cedice’s measurement allows us to observe how the cost of a fixed basket of goods and services changes in Caracas, Valencia and Maracaibo. Its results offer a reference on household spending in those cities, although they are not equivalent to the national price index calculated by the BCV.
With information from a press release.
