Baah Wadieh, Government Statistician
The year-on-year producer inflation for all industry was 7.0 percent in August 2018 with a month-on-month change rate of -0.1 percent.
The August rate represents a 1.2 percentage point decrease in producer inflation relative to the rate recorded in July 2018 (8.2%).
The manufacturing sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year producer price inflation rate of 10.0 percent, followed by the mining and quarrying sub-sector with 1.9 percent.
The utilities sub-sector recorded the lowest year-on-year producer inflation of -0.2 percent, indicating no change in inflation.
Regarding monthly changes, manufacturing recorded the highest inflation rate of 0.2 percent, followed by the utilities sub-sector with 0.1 percent while the mining and quarrying sub-sector recorded -1.4 percent.
Baah Wadieh, Government Statistician, said the producer price inflation in the mining and quarrying sub-sector decreased by 5.6 percentage points over the July 2018 rate of 7.5 percent to record 1.9 percent in August 2018 while the producer inflation for manufacturing, which constitutes more than two-thirds of total industry, decreased by 0.4 percentage points to record 10.0 percent.
Trends
In August 2017, the producer price inflation rate for all industry was 6.6 percent.
The rate increased consistently to record 8.3 percent in October 2017, but declined to 7.1 percent in November 2017.
In December 2017, the rate increased to 8.7 percent but decreased consistently to record 3.7 percent in March 2018.
It increased to 6.4 percent in April 2018 and then to 7.1 percent in May 2018.
The rate increased again to record 7.7 percent in June 2018.
In July 2018, the rate increased further to record 8.2 percent but declined to 7.0 percent in August 2018.
During the month of August 2018, three out of the 16 major groups in the manufacturing sub-sector recorded inflation rates higher than the sector average of 10.0 percent.
Manufacture of coke, refined petroleum products and nuclear fuel recorded the highest inflation rate of 41.6 percent, while manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products recorded the lowest producer price inflation rate of -0.5%.
By Samuel Boadi