Johannesburg - South Africa's producer price inflation (PPI) slowed to 5.8% year-on-year in December from 6.5% in November, Statistics SA said on Thursday.
On a month-on-month basis, prices at the factory gate were down by 0.2% in December after being flat in November.
Economists polled by Reuters expected PPI to come in at 6% year-on-year while prices were forecast to dip 0.1% month-on-month.
Sharp decreases in the prices of manufactured petroleum products drove producer inflation down, according to Stats SA.However, there were noticeable increases in year-on-year prices for meat, tobacco and dairy products.
READ: Food, tobacco push up PPI
The latest PPI data shows that prices for final manufactured coke and petroleum products decreased by 14.7% year-on-year in December.
Noticeable year-on-year increases were recorded for the following products: Meat (15.1%), tobacco (10.2%) and dairy (11.7%).
The main contributors to the annual rate of 5.8% were food products, beverages and tobacco products (8.0% year-on-year and contributing 2.9 percentage points) and metals, machinery, equipment and computing equipment (9.1% year-on-year and contributing 1.3 percentage points).
Annual PPI for mining increased with 1.8% in December due to slightly higher prices for coal, gold, platinum and other metal ores.
Monthly PPI for agriculture increased with 1.9% in December due to price increases in maize, wheat, fruit, vegetables, milk and eggs.
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