Producer price index up in January

23 Feb 2012 14:57 - Staff Reporter

The year-on-year producer price index for domestic output in January 2012 has shown an increase of 8.9%, said Statistics SA.

The year-on-year producer price index for domestic output in January 2012 has shown an increase of 8.9%, Statistics SA said on Thursday.

The PPI rate was 0.9 of a percentage point lower than the corresponding annual rate of +9.8% in December 2011, the agency reported.

The lower annual rate in January 2012 could be explained by decreases in the annual rate of change in the PPI for mining and quarrying—the rate decreased from +10.1% in December to +7.7% in January.

Compared to December last year there were also decreases in the PPI rate in January of petroleum and coal—from +31.8% to +26.6%—and agriculture—from +11.8% to +7.9%.

These decreases were partially counteracted by increases in the annual rate of change (from December 2011 to January 2012) for:

Food at manufacturing: from +10.2 percent to +10.9 percent

Basic metals: from +4.9 percent to +5.4 percent

Chemical and chemical products: from +5.9 percent to +6.8 percent in January 2012.

Metal products: from +10.7 percent to +11.4 percent.

Forestry: from +3.4 percent to +5.3 percent.

From December 2011 to January 2012 the PPI for domestic output increased by 0.3% mainly due to monthly contributions from increases in the price indices of all other groups.—Sapa

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