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