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Ghana's PPI tumbles to 11.5 pct in January

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Ghana's Producer Price Index (PPI) for January 2013 tumbled further to 11.5 percent, after sliding to 17.1 percent in December 2012, the country's statistical Service disclosed here on Wednesday.

Acting Deputy Government Statistician Baah Wadier, in a media briefing, said the monthly change rate was also 0.2 percent compared with the -0.4 percent recorded the previous month.

The steep decline in the producer inflation, he said, was due to the fall in inflation for the Manufacturing sector.

Ghana's PPI assesses three main industry sectors, namely Manufacturing, Mining and Quarrying, Utilities.

Mining and quarrying, which constitutes 13.97 percent of all industry, recorded the highest inflation rate for the month under review, decreasing by 8.4 percent to record 18.4 percent, compared with the 26.8 percent recorded in December.

"Manufacturing, the highest industry sector with two-thirds (69. 75 percent) of all industry, recorded a decline to 12. 8 percent in January from the previous month's figure of 19.3 percent," he disclosed, adding that the Utilities sector, with 16.28 percent stakes in all industry, recording 1.2 percent, or 0.2 percentage points lower than the previous month's figure.

"If you have manufacturing, which is the largest sector in the PPI dropping by such a large margin, then you can be sure that it would pull down the whole industry sector inflation," Wadier responded to explain the huge decline in the PPI.

Magnus Ebo Duncan, Director for Economic Statistics at the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), said the petroleum sub-sector, with 22.5 percent share of the manufacturing sector, had also recorded zero inflation, pulling down the whole manufacturing sector inflation with it.

The monthly change rate indicated that mining and quarrying recorded an inflation rate of 0.7 percent, while manufacturing recorded a marginal increase of 0.1 percent.

There were however no increases in the Utilities sector. Endi