Johannesburg – The annual producer price index (PPI) for manufactured goods eased to 5.6% for February 2017 from 5.9% in January, data from Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) revealed.
The main contributors to this were food products, beverages and tobacco products which made a collective contribution of 2.8 percentage points. This was followed by coke, petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products which contributed 1.9 percentage points.
On a month-on-month basis, the PPI increased by 0.6% from January 2017. The main contributor to the monthly increase was attributable to coke, petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products with 0.4 percentage points.
Food, beverage and tobacco products and non-metallic mineral products each contributed 0.1 percentage points to the monthly change.
The PPI for intermediate manufactured goods changed by 7% in February. The main contributors to the annual rate include chemicals, rubber and plastic products with 2.7 percentage points. For the month, the PPI increased by 0.7%.
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Stats SA recently reported that manufacturing production was up 0.8% in January 2017, this was still below levels of production recorded before the global financial crisis.
Electricity and water changed by 9.3% in February 2017, compared with the annual rate of 10% in January. Electricity contributed the bulk of the change with 7.6 percentage points. For the month, the PPI changed by 0.8%, the change was attributed to electricity.
Mining’s PPI changed by an annual rate of 12.2%. Non-ferrous metal ores contributed 4.5 percentage points to this changed, followed by coal and gas with 2.8 percentage points. Gold and metal ores contributed 2.1 percentage points.
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From January the change in PPI was 3.3%. Stone quarrying, clay and diamonds contributed 2.7 percentage points to this change.
Agriculture, forestry and fishing’s PPI reported a change of -3.2% in February. However, the PPI increased by 1.2% since January.
On an annual basis agriculture dragged down the annual rate with -4.1 percentage points. However it contributed 1.5 percentage points to the monthly change of 1.2%.