NEWS RELEASE
Producer Price Index
Highlights

March 2007

May 31 , 2007

The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) recently released a new economic indicator, the Producer Price Index (PPI) that is being published monthly. The monthly bulletin of producer prices represents a new time series that tracks price movements at the level of the producer for the Mining & Quarrying and Manufacturing industries. The data will be published with a two month lag.

The Producer Price Index (PPI) as published in the March 2007 Bulletin showed that the index for the Mining and Quarrying industry increased by 0.2 per cent, while the index for Manufacturing rose by 1.2 per cent when compared with February 2007. The index for Mining & Quarrying rose from 113.2 in February to 113.4 in March 2007 while Manufacturing rose from 109.8 to 111.1 during the same period.

When the Index for March 2007 was compared with that for March 2006, there was an increase of 4.1 percent and 5.2 per cent for Mining & Quarrying and Manufacturing respectively.

For the fiscal year to date April 2006 to March 2007, the index moved by 3.9 percent in Mining & Quarrying and by 4.2 per cent in Manufacturing. Quarterly movements between the first Quarter of 2007 and the last quarter of 2006 revealed that there was a 1.5 per cent increase in the Producer Price Index for Mining & Quarrying and 2.0 per cent decline in the quarterly index for Manufacturing.

The Producer Price Index Bulletin for March 2007 provides detailed information and is available at our distribution centre located at 7 Cecelio Avenue, Kingston 10.