•    Producer Price Index drops further in January 2015

Producer Price Index (PPI, 2000=100) for manufacturing decelerated by 4.1 percent in January 2015 compared to negative 1.0 percent posted in January 2014. Thirteen out of twenty major sectors posted decrements led by the significant decreases of petroleum products (-27.1%), furniture and fixtures (-14.4%) and miscellaneous manufactures (-12.2%).  On the other hand, only five of the twenty major sectors reflected increments led by tobacco products (6.3%). Refer to Tables 1 and A-1.

On a monthly basis, PPI likewise decreased by 1.4 percent in January 2015 compared with a negative 0.4 percent in January 2014. Eleven major sectors led by furniture and fixtures (-8.7%) reflected declines. In addition, the decreased posted by petroleum products (-8.4%) further pulled down the performance of the January 2015 PPI. Furthermore, eight sectors posted increases while one sector remained flat. Refer to Tables 1 and A-2.

• Introduction

• Method of Index Computation

• Industry Coverage

Starting with January 2013 reference month, the PPI utilizes the 2009 Philippine Standard Industry Classification (PSIC) to classify sectors and industries. Selected industry classes of the 2009 PSIC were grouped to form the 20 industry groupings of the 2014 PPS. These are presented in the table below.

Note:  * - Major sectors categorized into sub-sectors

• Response Rate

The response rate for January 2015 is 78.6 percent, which corresponds to the retrieval of 299 establishments’ reports out of the 358 samples for the survey.  Refer to Table B.

Missing prices for products of sample establishments are estimated using the short-term relative change of all available prices within the same industry class. Revisions to the preliminary estimates are done upon receipt of actual reports from late respondents.