Prof Samuel Anim — Government Statistician

Producer Price Inflation drops to 11.8% in February

Business Desk Report Business News Mar - 20 - 2020 , 10:57

Inflation from producers perspective in the country has dropped to 11.8 per cent in February 2020, data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has shown.

This rate represents a 2.7 percentage point decrease in producer inflation relative to the 14.5 per cent recorded in January 2020.

The Producer Price Index (PPI) measures the average change over time in the prices received by domestic producers for the production of their goods and services.

A statement from the GSS quoted the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Anim saying, “the year-on-year producer inflation for all industry was 11.8 per cent in February 2020; the monthly change rate was -0.3 per cent.”

He said the mining and quarrying sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year producer price inflation rate of 26.1 per cent, followed by the utility sub-sector with 12.3 per cent.

The manufacturing sub-sector recorded the lowest year-on-year producer inflation rate of 8.7 per cent.

For the monthly changes, he said the utility sub-sector recorded the highest inflation rate of -0.1 per cent, followed by mining and quarrying sub-sector with - 0.2 per cent.

The manufacturing sub-sector recorded the lowest rate of -0.4 per cent.

Sectorial breakdown

The producer price inflation in the mining and quarrying sub-sector decreased by 6.1 percentage points over the January 2020 rate of 32.2 per cent to record 26.1 percent in February 2020.

The producer inflation for manufacturing which constitutes more than two-thirds of the total industry decreased by 2.5 percentage points to record 8.7 per cent.

The utility sub-sector recorded an inflation rate of 12.3 per cent for February 2020 indicating a decrease of 0.3 percentage point over the January 2020 rate of 12.6 per cent.

Prof. Annim noted that in February 2020, five out of the 16 major groups in the manufacturing sub-sector recorded inflation rates higher than the sector average of 8.7 per cent.

“Manufacture of machinery and equipment recorded the highest inflation rate of 24.7 per cent, while the manufacture of textiles recorded the least inflation rate of 0.2 per cent,” he said.