Improved Gold Prices Keep April PPI At 7.1 Percent

By Kingsley Asare

The Producer Price Inflation (PPI) rate for April 2019 year-on-year remained unchanged as the price of gold improves on the world market.

The PPI rate for April 2019 stood at 7.1 per cent, the same figure recorded in March this year.

Addressing a news conference on the April PPI, Government Statistician, Professor Samuel K. Annim said the strong performance of the Cedi against its international peers influenced the April 2019 PPI rate.

He said the month-on-month change in producer price index between March 2019 and April 2019 was 0.9 per cent.

The Government Statistician said the manufacturing sub-sector recorded an inflation rate of 7.5 per cent, an increase of 0.7 percentage points of what was recorded in March this year, while the utilities sub-sector recorded the lowest year-on-year producer inflation of 1.1 per cent.

Prof Annim said mining and quarrying sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year inflation rate of 12.3 per cent.

The Government Statistician explained that the increase in the PPI rate of mining and quarrying was due to the improvement in gold prices on the international market and strong performance of Cedi in the period under review.

"With respect to the monthly changes, manufacturing recorded the highest inflation rate of 1.9 per cent, followed by utilities sub-sector with 0.8 percent. Mining and quarrying sub-sector recorded the lowest inflation rate of -2.5 percent," Prof Annim said.

The Government Statistician said the PPI rate for the petroleum industry for April stood at 17.2 per cent.

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