South Africa’s March 2005 producer price index (PPI) is expected to rise to a 1,7% year-on-year (y/y) increase, from only 1,2% y/y in February.
Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) will release the March producer price data at 11.30am on Thursday April 28.
According to an I-Net Bridge survey of economists, the range is from 1,4% y/y to 2,5% y/y.
Economists have been surprised by the lack of pass-through of the high international oil prices into imported crude oil prices, with the spot Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) basket rand price rising by 25,3% y/y in February, while Customs said the landed crude oil price only increased by 15,5% y/y.
The monthly change is even more at odds with the spot price, as the landed price saw a 6,9% drop in February after a 4,9% decline in January, whereas the rand spot price rose by 17,4% in January and 4,4% in February.
In March, the rand Opec basket spot price rose by 20,9% on February and was up a massive 42,6% y/y.
The average for 2004 was a producer inflation rate of 0,6%, compared with the 2003 average of 1,7% and 14,2% in 2002.
The 2004 average was the lowest since 1959, when there was no change in producer prices. The lowest annual consumer inflation in the post-1945 period was also in 1959, at 1,1%.
The May 2004 PPI data ended the y/y deflation trend that began in September 2003, when the index posted the first y/y deflation since World War II.
Overall imported prices ended 19 consecutive months of y/y deflation in November 2004 and then moved back into y/y deflation in December.
In 2003, imported prices declined by 4,2% after surging by 15,5% in 2002, and in 2004 there was another year of imported deflation with a 3,9% decline.
Locally produced inflation eased by 2,3% y/y in 2004, from 3,9% in 2003 and 13,2% in 2002. — I-Net Bridge