- producer inflation for April 2018 was 6.4 %, representing 2.7% rise y/y
Production sectors in the country should expect some negative impact, following the shutdown of FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, starting today, Monday May 28, a government statistician has indicated.
Mr Anthony Amuzu, Deputy Government Statistician, emphasised this point against the backdrop of an increase of 0.3 percentage points in inflation in the utilities sub-sector for April 2018.
The sub-sector recorded inflation of -0.3 percent in April 2018 from the -0.6 percent recorded in March 2018.
In an interview with Goldstreet Business, he explained that the obvious disruption of gas supply will trigger inflationary pressures
The Aboadze power enclave, supplied with gas from the Jubilee field, is expected to shut-down for 21 days to allow for turret remediation works on the Floating Production and Storage Offshore (FPSO) Kwame Nkrumah.
A combined statement from the Volta River Authority (VRA), Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) and Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) however, explained that there will only be a minimal loss of some power generation from VRA plants at Aboadze and the Ameri plant, and any loss in power generation from the west will be offset by generating additional power from the Tema area.
The producer inflation rate in the petroleum subsector recorded an increase to 22.7 percent in April 2018, after a consistent decline to 15.9 percent in March 2018, from a high of 36.4 percent in December 2017.
The current increase in the producer inflation has been attributed to the increases in the inflation of manufacturing and, mining and quarrying sub-sectors.
Explaining the happenings in these sub-sectors, Acting Government Statistician, Baah Wadieh said the mining and quarrying sub-sector increase was partly due to some marginal increase of gold prices, but more of base drift effect; where gold prices dipped slightly in April 2017, thereby affecting the base used in the calculation of the April 2018.
The producer price inflation in the Mining and Quarrying sub-sector increased to 10.3 percent in April 2018, from 5.8 percent recorded in March 2018, representing 4.5 percentage points increase.
For the manufacturing sub-sector; Wadieh noted that, the outcome was as a result of significant increases for the prices of the manufacturing of basic metals and slight increases of petroleum products.
Manufacturing increased by 3.0 percentage points to record 7.2 percent in April, from 4.2 percent in March.
This sub-sector constitutes more than two-thirds of total industry.
Six out of the 16 major groups in the manufacturing sub-sector recorded inflation rates higher than the sector average of 7.2 percent.
Manufacture of machinery and equipment recorded the highest inflation rate of 26.1 percent, while manufacturing of food products and beverages recorded the lowest producer price inflation rate of -0.8 percent.
By Joshua W. Amlanu
