February producer price index rises 10.8%

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's producer price index (PPI) for February rose by 10.8% to 110.4 from 99.6 a year earlier, the Statistics Department said.

The department said in a statement on Friday that the highest increase was recorded by the mining index (35.7%), followed by agriculture, forestry and fishing (29.3%), manufacturing (7.4%) and electricity and gas supply (3.0%).

It said the index for water supply decreased by 0.1%.

"On a monthly basis, the PPI for local production improved by 0.7% in February 2017 due to increases in two sectors, namely, manufacturing (1.1%) as well as agriculture, forestry and fishing (0.2%).

"Meanwhile, mining declined 0.9%, followed by water supply (0.2%) and electricity and gas supply (0.1%).

The department said the PPI for local production by stage of processing (SOP) inclined 0.7% in February versus January. This was due to increases in the indices for intermediate materials, supplies and components (1.3%), finished goods (0.4%) and crude materials for further processing (0.1%).

Compared with the identical period a year ago, the PPI for local production by SOP for February increased 10.8% due to increases in the indices for crude materials for further processing (37.7%), intermediate materials, supplies and components (7.6%) and finished goods (0.8%). - Bernama