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Louella Desiderio - The Philippine Star
March 5, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Local producer prices rose at a faster pace in January from the previous month, driven mainly by chemical products, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The Producer Price Index (PPI) for manufacturing posted a 0.8 percent uptick in January this year, higher than the 0.1 percent increase in December 2024.
This also marks a rebound from the 1.1 percent contraction in the same month last year.
PPI measures the average change in factory gate prices in the local market relative to a base period.
“The faster annual increase of PPI for the manufacturing sector in January 2025 was primarily due to the acceleration in the annual rate of the PPI for manufacture of chemical and chemical products industry division at 2.4 percent in January 2025 from 1.4 percent annual increase in December 2024,” the PSA said.
The chemical and chemical products industry division contributed 30.3 percent to the acceleration in PPI in January.
Another main contributor to PPI growth was the coke and refined petroleum products industry division, which rose at a faster rate of 1.4 percent from the previous month’s one percent.
The PSA said the manufacture of rubber and plastic products was also a main contributor to the PPI growth as it registered a 0.7 percent increase in January this year from a 0.3 percent decline in December last year.
Of the remaining 19 industry divisions, 13 posted increases, while six registered declines during the period.
In particular, those with positive growth rates in January are computer, electronic and optical products; beverages; basic metals; machinery and equipment except electrical; other manufacturing and repair and installation of machinery and equipment; wearing apparel; tobacco products; leather and related products, including footwear; printing and reproduction of recorded media; wood, bamboo, cane, rattan articles and related products; furniture; textiles and basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations.
On the other hand, the following registered declines in January: other non-metallic mineral products; transport equipment; food products; electrical equipment; fabricated metal products except machinery and equipment and paper and paper products.
