MANILA -- Producer prices in the manufacturing sector continued to increase in May, mainly driven by higher selling prices of tobacco and petroleum products, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported over the weekend.
PSA said the Producer Price Index (PPI) for manufacturing rose 1 percent in May 2018, reversing the negative growth of 1.8 percent during the same period last year.
It attributed the increment to the increase of 12 out of 20 major sectors, led by tobacco products with 49.5 percent and petroleum products with 18.5 percent.
Eight sectors, however, posted decreases with fabricated metal products posting -14.2 percent, and rubber and plastic products, -13.9 percent.
The PSA said month-on-month, PPI continues to exhibit a positive growth of 0.5 percent in May 2018 from 0.4 percent a month earlier.
Some 16 major sectors pulled up the monthly PPI, led by paper and paper products rising by 2 percent.
Fabricated metal products, non-metallic mineral products, and wood products posted decrements.
Meanwhile, the PPI is generated through the results of the Producer Price Survey conducted nationwide.
The survey gathers monthly producer prices of selected products of establishments included in the market basket.
The response rate for May 2018 is 82.3 percent, which corresponds to the retrieval of 618 establishments’ reports out of the 751 samples for the survey. (PNA)
