Food and beverage prices in the Canary Islands have reduced the distance with those of the rest of Spain, but continue to be 0.86% more expensive in the archipelago. This is reflected in the price analysis tool Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) Canary Islands-Spain of the Canary Islands Institute of Statistics (ISTAC).
This operation performs a massive analysis of online sales prices. In this way, an important gap in statistical information in the autonomous community of the Canary Islands is covered.
Of the more than 300 products included in the sample, food was 1.03% more expensive in the Canary Islands than in the rest of the country in 2022, and non-alcoholic beverages, 0.86%; while alcoholic beverages were 2.70% cheaper. This group of products represents approximately 20.2% of the average annual expenditure of an average family in the Canary Islands and 19% for the national total.
Comparison without value added taxes
The new tool goes a step further by being able to compare the net prices of products, eliminating value added taxes. The application distinguishes in the 313 products considered the different types of IGIC and VAT that tax each of the articles.
In this way, it has become clear that if prices are analyzed by eliminating the Canary Islands General Indirect Tax (IGIC) for the Canary Islands and the Value Added Tax (VAT) for the rest of Spain, the amount of food and beverages in the islands is 7.55% higher than in the rest of the country. Without these taxes, food was 7.04% more expensive in the Canary Islands than in the rest of the country, non-alcoholic beverages, 12.71%, and alcoholic beverages 8.72% more expensive.
As Matilde Asián pointed out, one of the most relevant points is that the results of this analysis show that the Canarian tax system exerts a containment power on the prices of the products in the sample, bringing us closer to the rest of the national territory and ruling out the widespread belief that the price of the shopping basket is much higher in the archipelago.
"This means that the existing tax prudence in the Canary Islands manages to contain net prices, even with higher gross prices. In addition, the collection, segmentation and study of these price data will allow the Government of the Canary Islands to plan measures in the field of the fight against inflation and guarantee the Canarians a shopping basket of prices similar to that of the rest of the country," added the Minister of Finance and Relations with the European Union.
Methodology and massive data analysis
For this study, the selected products have been accessed through the massive analysis of online sales prices. This use of massive databases (big data) as an alternative and complementary source to the traditional obtaining of information reduces costs, taking into account the enormous effort that would involve obtaining a similar amount of information by collecting the data in situ.
These products are part of the first two groups of the ECOICOP classification of goods and services of the United Nations: food and non-alcoholic beverages, and alcoholic beverages and tobacco. However, the study does not include tobacco, since Spanish legislation prohibits its online sale; and fresh meats, since difficulties were detected in finding a minimum amount of articles suitable for price comparison.
For each product, different types of articles are detailed, as they are presented for sale in supermarkets, so that, for example, in 2022 the total number of articles that have entered the study amounts to approximately 6,500. In turn, for each article there are prices in each postal code and for each supermarket chain, so that the total volume of data for 2022 reached 235 million records.
The prices captured in this statistic, using the web scraping technique, have been marketed by the supermarket chains Alcampo, Caprabo, Carrefour, Condis, El Corte Inglés, DIA, Eroski, Hipercor, Hiperdino, Mercadona and Tutrébol. The comparison analyzes the annual evolution of prices from 2013 to 2022.
To select the type of products included in the analysis, the ISTAC took as a reference the list of products used by the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for the calculation of Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) by countries at the international level. It also used the Methodology for the calculation of Purchasing Power Parities of the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
Improvement of the comparison between islands
Until now, the ISTAC had an operation to compare island prices through surveys (Purchasing Power Parities in the Canary Islands). With the incorporation of this new operation, which is developed with massive data analysis techniques, the ISTAC is studying updating the island methodology to generate a mixed methodology, which incorporates massive data analysis and maintains surveys for areas and establishments that do not offer their sale of products online.
