Mohd Uzir noted that there had been inflation at the producer level in other selected countries as well.
PETALING JAYA: Malaysia's producer price index (PPI) increased to record a 3.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) rise in December 2022 compared with 3.2% a month earlier.
The PPI, which measures the prices of goods at the factory gate, saw increases in all sectors, except the agriculture and the forestry and fishing sector, which recorded a decrease of 17.5% y-o-y in Dec 2022, the Statistics Department said.
The decline was led by the contraction in the index of growing of perennial crops that fell 27.3% y-o-y, which had seen a double-digit decline for six consecutive months thus far.
Conversely, the department said the manufacturing sector increased 6.1% y-o-y from a rise of 6.2% y-o-y in November 2022 mainly due to the increase in the indices of manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products that rose 14.2% y-o-y.
“This is followed by the manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products that rose 9.3% y-o-y and the manufacture of chemicals and chemical products which rose 3.1% y-o-y,” said chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin.
He said the mining sector also registered an increase of 3.7% from and increase of 2.4% in November 2022, while the water supply and electricity and gas supply sectors had also recorded an increase of 3.8% and 1%, respectively.
Mohd Uzir noted similarly, there had been inflation at the producer level in other selected countries as well.
“Inflation at the producer level in December 2022 for selected countries also showed moderate increase as compared to November 2022.
“The United States posted an increase of 6.2% compared with 7.3% in November 2022 due to the increase in index of eggs for fresh use (191.8%) and fresh and dry vegetables (92.3%), but was balanced by a decline in liquified petroleum gas index (minus 10.1%) and the gasoline index (minus 5.9%),” he said.
“Asian countries such as China recorded a decrease of negative 0.7% in December 2022 compared to a decrease of 1.3% in November 2022 attributed to the processing industry (minus 2.7%).
“Meanwhile, Japan and India recorded an increase at a rate of 10.2% and 5% respectively this month,” he added.
Mohd Uzir also noted other contributory factors to this general rising trend including adverse weather conditions in the major suppliers’ areas which impacts the supply of vegetables and sea products.
“The worsened flood situation at certain plantation areas affected the produce of vegetables products, while the turbulent sea and high tide influenced the productivity process in the sea.
“The seasonally lower output due to the monsoon season may lift the prices higher at the consumer level,” he said.
Locally, the PPI showed a negative 0.3% month-on-month (m-o-m) in December 2022 compared to 0.6% in the previous month.
This was owing to the decrease in agriculture, forestry and fishing index to post negative 1.7% m-o-m in December 2022 from 5.5% in November 2022.
The department also said the prices of oil palm fresh fruit bunches had also saw a 2.4% m-o-m decline for the month under review.
