PPI dips slightly

Story: Boahene Asamoah
THE Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures the average change over time in the prices received by domestic producers for the production of goods and services for the month of January, stood at 28.65 per cent.
This represents a a slight decrease of 2.38 per per centage points from the December 2007 index.
Announcing the figures at the monthly press conference in Accra yesterday, the Chief Statistician and the Director of Trade and Industry Division of the Ghana Statistical Service, Mrs Araba Forson, indicated that the annual index for mining and quarrying, manufacturing and utilities were 51.46 per cent, 19.94 per cent and 54.16 per cent respectively.
“The annual mining and quarrying index for January 2008 compared to December 2007 edged up by 1.46 percentage points”, she stated.
Mrs Forson stated that the January index for mining of metal ores stood at 55.88 per cent edging up by 4.05 per cent over December 2007 annual index, while the index for mining and quarrying such as salt for January 2008 jumped by 27.02 per cent as compared to December 2007 figure.
Again, she indicated that the annual index for the manufacturing sector compared to the previous month decreased by 0.14 percentage points.
The monthly all industry index for January, 2008 fell marginally by 0.53 per cent after it had edged up by 3.51 per cent in the previous month.
The PPI measures price change from the perspective of the producer. This contrast with other measures such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures price change from the purchaser’s perspective.
Price of approximately 950 items are collected from 209 establishments each month.
The PPI indices are available for virtually every industry in the mining, manufacturing and utilities sectors of the economy.
According to the Ghana Statistical Service, there were plans to expand coverage to include telecommunications, construction, services and agriculture.