Malaysia's SPPI up 3.4% in 1Q23

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s services producer price index (SPPI) rose 3.4 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) to 114.7 points in the first quarter of 2023 (1Q 2023) from 110.9 in the same quarter last year as most subsectors recorded an increase of prices during the quarter under review.

Chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin said among the subsectors, the accommodation and food and beverage (F&B) service activities increased 8.3 per cent y-o-y in 1Q 2023 from eight per cent y-o-y in 4Q 2022 due to the increase in restaurants and mobile food service activities which rose 9.8 per cent.

"The transportation subsector increased 6.5 per cent y-o-y from 5.3 per cent y-o-y in Q4 2022 contributed by passenger air transport (up 25.6 per cent),” he said in a statement today.

Mohd Uzir said the arts, entertainment and recreation as well as education subsectors inched up 1.1 per cent y-o-y respectively in Q1 2023 supported by other amusement and recreation activities (up 1.9 per cent) and secondary education (1.9 per cent) respectively.

He said other subsectors which showed positive growth in 1Q 2023 were professional (up 0.5 per cent y-o-y) and health (0.4 per cent y-o-y) while the real estate activities as well as information and communication subsectors were flat during the quarter under review.

Quarter-on-quarter, he said the SPPI rose 0.3 per cent in 1Q 2023 against 0.4 per cent in the previous quarter supported by the increase in the indices of accommodation and F&B service activities (up1.3 per cent), education (up 0.5 per cent), transportation (0.3 per cent), health (0.2 per cent) and professional (0.1 per cent).

He added that the arts, entertainment and recreation index contracted 1.7 per cent while the index of real estate activities and information and communication remained unchanged. - Bernama