The Producer Price Inflation rate, a measure of ex-factory prices of goods and services received by domestic producers, rose to 15.6 percent in January 2022 on a year-on-year basis.

This rate represents a 0.9 percentage points increase in producer inflation relative to the revised rate of 14.7 percent recorded in December 2021. The recent PPI data released by the Ghana Statistical Service saw a 1.9 percentage points upward adjustment in the earlier figure reported for December last year. The December 2021 PPI figure initially reported by the GSS was 12.8 percent.

The revised producer price index was 831.2 in December 2021 and the provisional index for January 2022 was 864.0. This resulted in a month-on-month change in producer price index between December 2021 and January 2022 of 4.0 percent. This rate is higher than the 1.5 percent recorded between November and December last year.

PPI For the various sub-sectors

Notably, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) provided information on inflation rates for all industry and its three major sub-sectors for the last twelve months. The major sub-sectors include Mining and Quarrying, Manufacturing and Utilities.

The producer price inflation in the Mining and Quarrying sub-sector increased by 2.1 percentage points over the December 2021 rate of 0.1 percent to record 2.2 percent in January 2022. The utility sub-sector recorded 0.3 percent year-on-year inflation rate in January 2022 and a monthly inflation rate of 0.1 percent.

Manufacturing Sector

The producer inflation for the Manufacturing sub-sector, which constitutes more than two-thirds of the total industry, increased by 0.8 percentage points to record 22.9 percent in the first month of the year.

In January 2022, two out of the sixteen major groups in the manufacturing sub-sector recorded inflation rates higher than the sector average of 22.9 percent.

Manufacture of coke, refined petroleum products and nuclear fuel recorded the highest inflation rate of 35.0 percent, while the Manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semitrailers recorded the least inflation rate of -2.9 percent.

Trends

In January 2021, the producer price inflation rate for all industry was 8.7 percent. The rate increased to record 13.0 percent in March 2020, but declined to 10.9 percent in April 2021. In May 2021, the rate increased to 11.8 percent but decreased continuously to record 8.1 percent in August 2021. Subsequently, the rate increased continuously to record 15.6 percent in January 2022.

The producer inflation rate in the petroleum subsector was 4.4 percent in January 2021. The rate increased continuously to peak at 31.0 percent in March 2021 but declined to 23.9 percent in June 2021. The rate then increased to 58.4 percent in November 2021. Subsequently, it dropped continuously to 35.0 percent in January 2022.

The GSS noted that its release provides the annual (year-on-year) and monthly producer inflation rates for all industry and three major sub-sectors of industry (Mining and Quarrying, Manufacturing and Utilities) for the last twelve months. However, GSS cautioned that the figures for the month of January 2022 are provisional, and are subject to revision when additional data become available but all other indicators are final.