The Producer Price Inflation (PPI) dipped from 5.5 per cent in February 2018 to 3.7 per cent in March 2018, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has said.

The rate, for all industry, represents a 1.8 percentage point decrease in producer inflation relative to the rate recorded in February 2018.

Addressing a news conference in Accra on Wednesday, Anthony Amuzu, Deputy Government Statistician in charge of Operations, said the month-on-month change in the producer price index between February 2018 and March 2018 was -0.3 per cent.

The decrease in the rate, he explained, was mainly due to the fall in all the three major sub-sectors of industry — mining and quarrying, manufacturing and utilities.

For instance, the manufacturing sector, which constituted more than two-thirds of total industry declined by 1.8 percentage points, to record 4.2 per cent due to fall in the price of petroleum.

Additionally, the mining and quarrying sub-sector decreased by 3.4 percentage points over February 2018 rate of 9.2 per cent to record 5.8 per cent in March 2018 influenced by marginal decline in the price of gold.

The utilities sub-sector, however, recorded inflation of -0.6 per cent in March 2018, indicating a decrease of 0.6 percentage points relative to the rate recorded in February 2018 due to marginal fall in generation of utility.

Mr Amuzu, explaining the trends, noted that in March 2017, the Producer Price Inflation rate for all industry was 6.0 per cent, adding that this declined consistently to record 2.0 per cent in July 2017.

“Subsequently, it increased consistently to record 8.3 per cent in October 2017 but declined to 7.1 per cent in November 2017,” he observed.