Producer Inflation inches up to 17.1%

Consequently, the month-on-month change in producer prices between November 2012 and December 2012 was -0.4 per cent.

Announcing the rate at a news conference on Wednesday, the Acting Deputy Government Statistician in charge of Technical Support at the Ghana Statistical Service, Mr Baah Wadieh, said the increase in the rate resulted from an increase in the inflation rate for the mining and quarrying sector as well as a slight increase in the manufacturing sector. 

“The mining and quarrying sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year producer inflation rate of 27.6 per cent, followed by manufacturing with 19.3 per cent and utilities with 1.5 per cent,” he said.

The monthly changes in the producer price index, however, indicated that manufacturing recorded a marginal increase of 0.1 per cent points while mining and quarrying recorded a -2.3  inflation rate. There was no change in the utilities sub-sector.

Mr Wadieh also explained that during the last 12 months, the producer inflation in the petroleum sub-sector exhibited a downward trend, adding that “the highest inflation rate in the sub-sector was recorded in December 2011 (25.8%) and the lowest in May 2012 (16.0%).

Story: Jessica Acheampong