The Producer Price Inflation (PPI) which measures the ex-factory prices of goods and services in the country inched up to 8.8 percent in November 2020.

Year-on-year, this means that between November 2019 and November 2020, the PPI increased by 8.8 percent.

This rate represents a 0.4 percentage point increase in producer inflation relative to the rate of 8.4 percent recorded in October 2020.

This is according to a press briefing by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on Wednesday, December 16, 2020.

The month-on-month change was 0.6 percent between October 2020 and November 2020 compared to lower rates of 0.3 and 0.2 percentage points recorded between September and October, as well as August and September respectively.

Giving a further breakdown, the GSS noted that the producer price inflation in the Mining and Quarrying sub-sector saw the highest increment with a rate of 38.0 percent. This was 2.7 percent higher than 35.3 percent recorded in October 2020. It was also 6.2 percent higher than the 31.8 percent recorded in September.

Source : Ghana Statistical Service

Manufacturing

The month-on-month producer inflation for mining & quarrying was 2.0 percent compared to 0.5 percent for manufacturing and 0.2 percent for utilities.

Manufacturing saw a marginal decline of 0.1 percent in yearly producer price inflation from 5.1 percent recorded in October to 5.0 percent in November.

Eight major components of the manufacturing sector recorded rates above the sector average: manufacture of rubber and plastic products (16.9%); manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers, and semi-trailers (16.8%); and manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products (11.3%).

Others are the manufacture of food products and beverages (9.7%); manufacture of furniture (7.7%); publishing, printing, and production of recorded media (6.8%); manufacture of textiles (6.4%); and manufacture of chemicals and chemical products (5.1%).

Manufacture of coke, refined petroleum products recorded the least inflation of -4.8 percent among the 16 groups in manufacturing.

Utilities (water & electricity) also recorded a yearly producer price inflation of 0.5 percent in November, up from 0.3 percent in the previous month.

Petroleum Price Index

The producer inflation rate in the petroleum subsector was -1.7 percent in November 2019. The rate increased consistently to record 20.6 percent in January 2020 but declined to record -15.4 percent in May 2020. However, the rate increased continuously to record -0.3 percent in September 2020 and declined to record -4.8 percent in November 2020

Figure 2 Producer inflation rate in the petroleum subsector