The rebased year-on-year producer price inflation rate for September this year rose to 45.6 per cent from 39.7 per cent in August.
This represents a monthly change rate of 5.2 per cent and a yearly change rate of 5.9 per cent.
Professor Samuel K. Annim, the Government Statistician, who announced the rebased Producer Inflation Index and Inflation with the reference rate of 2019, at a news conference in Accra yesterday, said the increase in the PPI was influenced by the manufacturing and mining sectors, which recorded PPI rates above the national average.
The manufacturing sector recorded producer inflation rate of 58.2 per cent, while the mining sector recorded PPI rate of 57.4 per cent, with almost 80 per cent of the weight, contributed about 95 per cent to the September year-on-year inflation of 45.6 per cent.
He said the sectors which the Ghana Statistical Service collected data on to compute the Producer Price Index and Inflation had been expanded from three to eight.
They are manufacturing with a weight of 35.0 per cent weight, mining and quarrying 43.7 per cent, electricity and gas (4.3 per cent), water, supply, sewerage, waste management (2.3 per cent) construction 0.9 per cent, transportation and storage 2.4 per cent accommodation and food service 0.4 per cent and information and communication (11.1 per cent.
Prof. Annim indicated that the electricity and gas sector in September this year recorded producer inflation rate of 24 per cent, with a monthly change rate of 4 per cent, water supply, sewerage and waste management recorded producer inflation rate of 13.6 per cent, construction 25.1 per cent, transportation and storage 27.3 per cent, accommodation and food service activities 24.9 per cent and information and communication with producer price inflation of 0.9 per cent.
“With the exception of information and communication and construction sub-sectors all the other six sub-sector recorded an increase in year-on-year producer inflation between August and September 2022. The highest change was recorded in the electricity and gas sub-sector increasing from 8.6 per cent in August to 24.0 per cent in September 2022,” he said.
In the manufacturing sub-sector, Prof. Annim, said the manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products with producer price inflation of 148.3 in September from 149.2 per cent in August, and the manufacture of computer electronic and optical products which saw a producer inflation rate of 69.8 per cent in September 2022 from 69.5 per cent in August, 2022, drove the producer inflation rate for the manufacturing sub-sector.
He said the mining and quarrying sub-sector which recorded producer price inflation rate of 88.9 per cent, other mining and quarrying with producer price inflation of 45.5 per cent drove the producer price inflation of the sub-sector.
Touching on the importance of the rebasing of the Producer Price Index and Inflation, Prof. Annim said it was to reflect the structural changes in the economy.
He said the rebasing would help determine the respective roles of the oil extraction, information and communication technology sub-sectors in the economy.
The Government Statistician said the firms for the collection of data had been increased from 225 to about 800 firms.
Prof. Annim the products which data was collected on had been increased from 900 to 2639.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
