The rate shows a 1.7 percentage points lower than the rate recorded in December 2016.

“The month-on-month change in the producer price index between December 2016 and January 2017 was 2.1 per cent,” Mr Baah Wadieh, the Acting Government Statistician, told a media conference, on Wednesday.

     Mr Wadieh explained that the decline in the rate was mainly due to decrease in the inflation rate for the mining and quarrying and manufacturing sub-sectors.

The producer price inflation in the Mining and Quarrying sub-sector recorded the highest year-on-year producer price inflation rate of 18.6 per cent, followed by the Manufacturing sub-sector with 2.4 per cent.

The Utilities sub-sector recorded the lowest year-on-year producer price inflation rate of -6.8 per cent.

With respect to the monthly changes, the mining and quarrying recorded the highest rate of 4.9 per cent followed by the manufacturing sub-sector with 2.0 per cent.

The utilities sub-sector recorded the lowest rate of 0.2 per cent.