?March Producer Price Inflation Increases to 6.7 Per Cent

By Kingsley Asare

The Producer Price Inflation (PPI) rate for March this year inched up as the cost of mining and quarrying rise.

The PPI rate year-on-year rose to 6.7 per cent from 5.4 in February, representing an increase of 1.3 percentage points relative to the figure recorded in February, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) said in Accra yesterday.

The monthly change in the producer price inflation stood at 0.9 per cent.

Addressing a news conference on the March PPI in Accra, the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annin, attributed the rise in the March PPI to the increase in the producer inflation of mining and quarrying.

Producer price inflation for mining and quarrying in March, he said rose to 15.9 per cent from the 13.3 per cent in February.

Prof Annin explained that producer inflation for the manufacturing sector, which constitutes more than two-thirds of total industry, edged up by 1.1 per cent to 6.1 per cent in March.

He said the utilities sector recorded the lowest producer year-on-year inflation rate of 0.9 per cent.

"With respect to the monthly changes, mining and quarrying recorded the highest producer inflation rate of 1.6 per cent, followed by the manufacturing sub-sector with 0.8 per cent. The utilities sub-sector recorded the lowest inflation rate of 0.2 per cent," Prof Annin said.

He said in March this year, five of the 16 major groups in the manufacturing sub-sector recorded inflation rates higher than the sector average of 6.1 per cent.

The Government Statistician mentioned manufacture of basic metals recorded the highest inflation rate of 17.0 per cent while manufacture of machinery and equipment recorded 0.0 per cent.

Prof Annin said PPI for the Petroleum sub-sector rose to 13.0 per cent from February from 8.9 per cent in February this year.

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