Utility Price Remains Unchanged

The Producer Price Index (PPI) -the index that measures the average change over time of ex-factory prices- recorded 39.40 percent for September, a 0.74 percent rise over the August rate of 39.13.

Importantly, utilities, one of the three sub-sectors, saw its price remaining almost stable over the July 2008 figure. Utilities recorded an annual percentage change or rate of inflation of 44.96 percent for September 2008 compared to 44.79 percent obtained in August.

On the other hand, the annual percentage change for manufacturing, that is the rate of inflation, was 37.25, while the change for mining and quarrying was 43.56 percent, a 6.96 percent drop from the previous month.

However, the September 2008 PPI for the three major sub-sectors, mining and quarrying, manufacturing and utilities, were 194.30, 151.21 and 157.59 percentrespectively.

In the manufacturing sub-sector, all but one of the major groupings showed appreciable increases of at least 10 percent.

However, there was no change in the index for manufacturing of electrical machinery and apparatus.

Four, out of eleven subgroups that contributed at least  four percent each to the total manufacturing output, had increases of at least one percent in their index level, accounting for the slight increase in the sub sector's monthly index level.

These sub groups were production, processing and preservation of meat, fish, fruit vegetables, oil and fats among others.  

With regard to mining and quarrying, the drop in the price of gold price was associated with the decline in the index. Magnus Ebo Duncan, Head of Economics and Statistics at the Ghana Statistical Service told CITY & BUSNESS GUIDE that the PPI may not be going up significantly anytime soon since fuel prices used by the firms to power their plants would go down soon.

By Charles Nixon Yeboah