Changes to the Bank of Canada Commodity Price Index (BCPI)

Effective 15 May 2003 the following changes will be made to the Bank of Canada Commodity Price Index (BCPI).

To ensure that the BCPI accurately reflects the natural resource sectors of the economy, the composition of the index has been modified somewhat and some new sources of price information have been introduced.

Weights in the new index will be chained to 1 January 1991 and 1 January 2000 to allow the weights to better reflect contemporary production values.

Details of these changes are available in a technical note to be published in the Spring issue of the Bank of Canada Review, available in May 2003.

Please note that these changes will result in minor revisions to the historical BCPI data.