After recording three consecutive months of decline, the producer price index for the “Manufacturing industries excluding oil refining” sector rose once more at the start of 2023.
Indeed, according to data published by the High Commission for Planning (HCP), it recorded an increase of 0.3% during the month of January 2023 compared to December 2022.
As a reminder, this index had dropped by 0.8% month on month in the twelfth month of the past year and a decline of 0.2% during the month of November 2022 compared to the previous month. In October 2022, the same index had recorded a drop of 0.1% compared to September 2022.
According to the explanations of the High Commission, the increase observed in the first month of the current year is justified by the increase in the prices of “Manufacture of tobacco products” by 8.4%, “Automotive Industry” and “Metal Products Manufacturing” (0.9%), “Chemical Industry” (0.4%), “Food Industry” (0.2%), “Clothing industry” (0.8%), “Textile industry” (0.6%) and “Manufacture of rubber and plastic products” (0.1%).
This evolution is also explained by the fall of 1.4% in the prices of “Metallurgy” and of 0.2% of the “Manufacture of electrical equipment”, indicates the public body in its information note relating to the industrial, energy and mining producer price index for the month of January 2023.
By way of comparison, the previous increase (0.1%) – which dates back to September 2022, was attributed on the one hand to the 0.2% increase in “Food industry” prices and 0 .1% of “Manufacture of rubber and plastic products”; and on the other hand to the fall of 0.3% in the prices of “Metallurgy”, of 0.5% of “Woodworking and manufacture of wooden and cork articles” and of 0.1% of l ‘Chemical Industry’ and ‘Clothing Industry’.
It is important to recall that the decline recorded last December was the result of a 3.9% fall in prices for the “Chemical industry”, 2.2% for “Metallurgy” and 0.1% for “Manufacturing of rubber and plastic products’.
This decline was also linked to the 0.2% rise in prices for “Food industry” and “Manufacture of electrical equipment”, 0.4% for “Clothing industry” and 0 .1% of “Textile Industry”.
With regard to the drop in the producer price index for the “Manufacturing industries excluding oil refining” sector observed during the month of November, the High Commission specifies that it was due to the drop of 1. 2% of the prices of “Metallurgy”, 0.6% of “Food Industry” and “Clothing Industry”, 0.1% of “Chemical Industry” and 0.3 % of “Textile industry” and “Beverage manufacturing”.
In an information note from the HCP at the time, it was also justified by the 3% increase in the prices of “Manufacture of machinery and equipment” and 0.3% of “Manufacture of electrical equipment”.
As for the decline recorded during the month of October of the same year, the public institution had explained it by the fall of 1.9% in the prices of “Metallurgy”, of 0.2% of “Industry chemicals”, 0.3% of the “Manufacture of electrical equipment” and 0.1% of the “Textile industry”.
A link had also been established between this fall at the time and the 0.4% rise in the prices of “Food industry” and “Woodworking and manufacture of wooden and cork articles”, from 0 .2% of “Automotive industry” and “Manufacture of machinery and equipment”, 0.6% of “Clothing industry” and 0.1% of “Manufacture of rubber products and Plastics” and “Computer Product Manufacturing”.
According to data recently made public by the HCP, during the month of January 2023, the producer price indices for the “Extractive industries”, “Electricity production and distribution” and “Electricity production and distribution” sectors of water” stagnated, as in December last year.
Alain Bouithy
