Cost of production inches up

Daily Graphic (pg 54), Thurs. April 29/10

Story: Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
THE cost of producing goods and services in Ghana increased by 0.44 per cent in March, this year over the previous month’s producer prices.
This was contained in the monthly Producer Price Index (PPI) released today by the Director, Economic and Industry Statistics Division of the Ghana Statistical Service, Mr Magnus Ebo Duncan.
The producer price measures the average change of prices received by domestic producers over time for the month.
In real terms the PPI went up from 190.56 points in February to 191.39 points.
The PPI for the country reports the price indices with reference to September 2006 base year period.
Mr Duncan said the respective yearly change in the PPI between March 2009 and March 2010 was 19.58 per cent, indicating 2.55 percentage points lower than the figure for February 2010.
According to him, between March 2009 and March 2010, the mining and quarrying sub-sector exhibited the highest inflation rate, except in February 2010.
He indicated that gold price was the major push of the index for March.
Mr Duncan said manufacturing recorded an inflation rate of 23.53 per cent and added that the rate of inflation for that sector for March was lower than that for February 2010 by 4.11 percentage points.
Additionally, for the mining and quarrying sector, the March 2010 inflation was lower than for February 2010 by 0.44 per cent, while in the utilities sector, the March inflation figure was lower than the February figure of 0.22 percentage points.
He explained further that in the manufacturing sector there was appreciable inflation in the manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products by 55.91 per cent, while the manufacture of wood products and cork recorded negative inflation rates of 3.01 per cent.