The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Friday, Aug. 30, that factory gate prices declined at a much faster pace in July this year.
The PSA said in a report that growth in the producer price index (PPI) for manufacturing declined by 0.4 percent in July from a 0.2 percent decrease noted in the same month last year and in June 2024.
This brought the average annual growth rate of PPI from January to July to a 0.8 percent decrease.
The PPI measures the average price change of domestically manufactured goods sold at factory gate prices to wholesalers and other consumers in the local market, relative to a base period.
The manufacture of computer, electronic, and optical products contributed 81 percent to the downtrend of annual PPI growth, the PSA said. Out of 22 manufacturing divisions, this has the second-highest weight in the computation of the PPI.
“The faster annual decline of PPI in July 2024 compared with its annual decrease in June 2024 was primarily due to the deceleration in the annual growth rate of the manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products industry division at 1.7 percent in July 2024 from 3.6 percent in June 2024,” the statistics agency stated.
The other main contributors to the faster year-on-year decline of PPI in July were the manufacturing of transport equipment (2.5 percent from 2.9 percent) and the manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products (1.3 percent from 1.1 percent.)
Food manufacturing accelerated to 0.7 percent in July from 0.6 percent annual increase in the previous month, which was attributed to the manufacture of dairy products industry group growing at 1.3 percent from 2.4 percent.
Other contributors to the faster annual rate of manufacture of food products were the processing and preserving of fruits and vegetables at 4.3 percent, and manufacture of vegetable and animal oils and fats at 3.5 percent.
Meanwhile, slower annual declines were observed in the processing and preserving of fish, crustaceans, and mollusks at 9.8 percent, and processing and preserving of meat at 0.5 percent.
Month-on-month, the top contributor to the downtrend in was also the manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products industry division, which registered a 0.4 percent decrease during the period.
Completing the top three contributors to the downtrend in the monthly rate of PPI for manufacturing during the period were the manufacture of transport equipment with a monthly decrease of 0.2 percent, and the manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products with a monthly decline of 0.5 percent.