Ghana’s Producer Price Inflation (PPI) increased to 6.4 percent in April 2018.
The Producer Price Inflation measures the average change over time in the general prices received by domestic producers for the production of goods and/or provision of services.
Comparing the April figure to that of March, the PPI went up by 2.7 percent.
In March, the PPI stood at 3.7 percent.
Presenting the figures to the media on Wednesday, March 23, 2018, the Acting Government Statistician, Baah Wadieh said the increase in the producer inflation was as a result of the significant increase in the inflation rate for manufacturing as well as mining and quarrying.
“The increase was as a result of increases in the inflation rate for manufacturing and mining and quarrying sub-sectors. Mining and quarrying went up from 5.8 percent to 10.3 percent followed by the Manufacturing sub-sector which went up from 4.2 percent with 7.2 percent.”
Mr. Baah Wadieh went on to explain the reason for the increase in inflation within the mining and quarrying sub-sector in particular, citing the rising cost of gold as a contributing factor.
“For mining and quarrying the increase was due to some marginal increase in gold prices but more of base-drift effect. Gold prices dipped in April 2017 and that affected the base for the calculation. Apart from that there was some marginal increase in gold prices on the world market.”
The Government Statistician however attributed the increase in the inflation for the manufacturing sub-sector to significant increases in the prices of the manufacture of basic metals and slight increases in the prices of petroleum products in April plus the base drift effect that emanated from April last year.
The Utilities sub-sector recorded the lowest year-on-year producer inflation of -0.3 percent.
With respect to the monthly changes, manufacturing recorded the highest inflation rate of 1.2 percent followed by Mining and quarrying sub-sector with 0.7 percent.
The utilities sub-sector recorded no change.
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By: Bobbie Osei/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
