Accra, March 15, GNA - The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on Thursday launched the maiden Producer Price Index (PPI), which is a measure of the average changeover time in the prices received by domestic producers of goods and services.

The prices used in computing the PPI are basic or factory-gate prices exclusive of taxes and transportation margins. Prices of about 950 items are collected from 190 establishments each month and used in the computation.

Speaking at the release of the PPI, Professor Nicholas N.N. Nsowah-Nuamah, Acting Government Statistician, said the introduction of the PPI would provide a more complete picture of price movements and trends for policy-makers and private sector decision-makers. Hitherto, policy-makers had to base their decisions on the Consumer Price Index used to measure inflation from the purchasers' (consumers) perspective.

"The two indices put together give a more complete picture of inflation in the country. Producers and consumers prices can differ due to government subsidies, sales and excise taxes and distribution costs," Professor Nsowah-Nuamah said.

According to him, the PPI with detailed product and industry data, will serve as a leading indicator of price change in the economy, allow business owners to make a comparison of price trends in their own business with those of the industry group, as well as what is used to estimate the current value of business capital assets.

Currently, the PPI covers the manufacturing, utilities (electricity and water) and mining sectors, which according to the 2007 budget, together accounted for 16.9 per cent of the industry's share of Gross Domestic Product of 25 per cent.

Prof. Nsowah-Nuamah said the PPI would gradually be expanded to include other production sectors such as transportation, telecommunications, agriculture and services but this would depend on the availability of data that could be used to derive weights. The maiden report indicates that all index of industries increased by 1.32 per cent in February, the mining index advanced by 6.23 per cent and the manufacturing index edged up by 0.75 per cent. There was no change in the utilities index in February.

Prof Nsowah-Nuamah said the mining index rose by 6.23 per cent after jumping by 18.4 per cent in January. Increases in the prices of gold and silver slowed from 19.30 in January to 6.76 per cent in February. The prices of diamonds fell 4.89 per cent. The manufacturing index in February edged up by 0.75 per cent, prices of food products increased by 7.68 per cent, prices of structural metal products rose 4.3 per cent and the prices of aluminium products advanced by 3.20 per cent.

After 9.57 per cent decrease in January in the prices of footwear products, the prices moved down by 2.28 per cent in February while the prices of furniture products fell by 1.36 per cent after rising 41.7 per cent in January.

Prof. Nsowah-Nuamah said the 12-month change (current month compared with same month in previous year) would not be available until October 2007.

He also said the February 2007 index should not be considered final because it was still opened to revision until May 2007. The development of the PPI in Ghana began in January 2006 with the assistance of the International Monetary Funds (IMF) and the General Data Dissemination Standards project for Anglophone Africa.