Baah Wadie (middle) addressing the media
The Producer Price inflation (PPI) rate for August 2017 was 6.6 percent, representing a 4.6 percentage points increase from the 2.0 percent recorded in July this year.
Government Statistician, Baah Wadieh, who disclosed this to the media in Accra yesterday, said the month-on-month change in producer price index between July 2017 and August 2017 was 1.0 percent.
The PPI measures the average change over time in the prices received by domestic producers for the production of their goods and services usually over a period of one year.
Industry
Mr. Wadie said the producer price inflation in the mining and quarrying sub-sector increased by 4.2 percent over the July 2017 rate of 4.1 percent to record 8.3 percent in August 2017.
Also, the producer inflation for manufacturing, which constitutes more than 66 percent of total industry increased by 5.8 percent to record 7.5 percent in August 2017.
The utilities sub-sector remained unchanged at 1.3 percent.
Manufacturing sector
Commenting on the manufacturing sub-sector, he said six of the major 16 manufacturing groups of the sub-sector recorded higher PPIs than the average of 7.5 percent.
These were the machinery and equipment group, which recorded 26.1 percent, the manufacture of refined petroleum products 23.2 percent, manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers 17.1 percent.
The manufacture of furniture also recorded 12.2 percent, the manufacture of basic metals 12.2 percent and the manufacture of chemical products also recording 9.4 percent.
The manufacture of paper and paper products recorded the lowest percentage points of -5.7 percent, decreasing by 5.7 percent.
Petroleum
Mr. Wadie also stated that the petroleum price index for August 2017 was 23.2 percent, adding that the rate for the same period last year was -16.3 percent.
The government statistician attributed the significant increase to the base drift effect and increases in the prices of petroleum products.
Some general trends
In August 2016, the producer price inflation rate for all industry was 11 percent.
The rate declined in September to record 9.7 percent but increased marginally to 9.8 percent in October 2016, then to 11.9 percent in November 2016.
However, it declined to 4.8 percent in December 2016 and then to 3.1 percent in January 2017.
In February 2017, the rate increased to 5.4 percent and then to 6.0 percent in March 2017, but declined consistently to record 2.0 percent in July 2017.
In August 2017, the rate increased to 6.6 percent.
By Melvin Tarlue & Akpene Darko-Cobbina