DOHA: The overall monthly Producer Price Index (PPI) for September, 2015 was estimated at 55.8 points, showing a decrease of 3 percent compared to the previous month, data released by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics show.
The fall in the overall PPI index was largely attributed to the decline in the prices of crude and natural gas oil and the changes in the indices of ‘Manufacturing’ and ‘Electricity & Water’.
On year-on-year basis, PPI of September, 2015 showed a steep fall of 40.4 percent when compared to the PPI of September 2014.
The Ministry released the monthly PPI of the Industrial sector for September 2015 with the base year 2013. Producer price index covers goods relating to ‘Mining’ (weight: 72.7 percent), ‘Electricity & Water’ (0.5 percent) and ‘Manufacturing’ (26.8 percent).
The PPI of ‘Mining’ sector for September, 2015 showed a decline by 1.5 percent when compared with PPI of August 2015, primarily due to the drop in prices recorded in ‘Crude petroleum and natural gas’ with same percentage. PPI of September 2015, when compared with its counterpart in the previous year, there has been a significant fall of 43.6 percent.
The Manufacturing sector has registered a decrease of 6.2 percent in September compared to the previous month’s Manufacturing index during this year.
The decreasing prices were noticed in: ‘Basic chemicals’ by 9.7 percent, ‘Refined Petroleum Products’ by 5.7 percent, ‘Other chemical products’ by 5.5 percent, ‘Basic Metals’ by 5 percent, ‘Juices’ by 2.8 percent , ‘Beverages’ by 2.4 percent, ‘Dairy products’ by 0.3 percent , and ‘Grain mill products’ by 0.2 percent.
The price increase is seen in ‘Cement and other non-metallic products’ by 3.1 percent and ‘Rubber and plastics products’ by 0.1 percent. ‘Paper and paper products’ remained unchanged at previous month’s level.
Comparing with the index of counterpart in the previous year (September 2014), ‘Manufacturing’ PPI of September, 2015 showed a sharp decline of 33.1 percent. The major groups which explain this price fall are ‘Refined Petroleum Products’ by 40 percent, ‘Basic chemicals’ by 24.5 percent, ‘Basic Metals’ by 23.8 percent, and ‘Other chemical products, man-made fibers’ by 6.5 percent.
However, prices rise are also noticed in: ‘Cement and other non-metallic products’ by 10 percent, ‘Juices’ by 4.4 percent, ‘Beverages’ by 3.5 percent, and ‘Dairy products’ by 2.6 percent.
The PPI of ‘Electricity and water’ group showed a decrease of 2.8 percent compared to August 2015, resulting from the price fall seen in ‘Water’ by 6.8 percent. The PPI of September, 2015, when compared to the PPI of September, 2014, showed a decrease (Y-o-Y) of 5.6 percent, resulting from the combined effect of price slip seen in ‘Electricity’ by 1.1 percent and ‘Water’ by 11.8 percent.
