Producer Price Inflation Drops To 11.8% In February

The Producer Price Inflation rate for February 2020 was 11.8%, representing a 2.7 percentage point decrease relative to the rate recorded in January 2020 of 14.5%.

The month-on-month change in producer price index between January 2020 and February 2020 was negative 0.3 percent.

Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, the Government Statistician, who announced the rate via a recorded message instead of a press conference in line with the directive on public gathering, said the producer price inflation in the Mining and Quarrying sub-sector decreased by 6.1 percentage points over the January 2020 rate of 32.2 percent to record 26.1 percent in February 2020.

The producer inflation for Manufacturing which constitutes more than two-thirds of the total industry decreased by 2.5 percentage points to record 8.7 percent.

The utility sub-sector recorded an inflation rate of 12.3 percent for February 2020 indicating a decrease of 0.3 percentage point over the January 2020 rate of 12.6 percent.

In February 2019, the producer price inflation rate for all industry was 5.4 percent. In April 2019, the rate increased to 7.1 percent but declined to 6.7 percent in May 2019. Since then, the rate increased consistently to record 10.2 percent in August 2019 but declined to 8.9 percent in October 2019.

The rate then increased again continuously to record 14.5 percent in January 2020 but declined to record 11.8 percent in February 2020.

Manufacturing Sector during February 2020, five out of the sixteen major groups in the manufacturing sub-sector recorded inflation rates higher than the sector average of 8.7 percent.

Manufacture of machinery and equipment recorded the highest inflation rate of 24.7 percent, while the Manufacture of textiles recorded the least inflation rate of 0.2 percent.

The producer inflation rate in the petroleum subsector was 8.9 percent in February 2019.

In April 2019, the rate increased consistently to record 17.2 percent but declined to 1.2 percent in June 2019.

However, it increased to 3.1 percent in August 2019 but declined again to negative 5.7 percent in October 2019.

Thereafter the rate increased consistently to record 20.6 percent in January 2020 but declined to record 14.4 percent in February 2020.

---GNA