Producer Price Index Eases By 1.9% In 2023 - DoSM

Malaysia's Producer Price Index (PPI) decreased by 1.9% in 2023 (2022: 7.8%), mainly due to the contraction in the agriculture, forestry fishing (-13.8%), according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM).

DoSM said that as the largest component in this sector, the double-digit decline in the growing of perennial crops index (-23.1%) led to the downturn of the overall sector.

“The mining sector also decreased by -5.9%, while the extraction of crude petroleum decreased by -10.1% after an increase of 6.4% in 2022,” DoSM said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the extraction of natural gas increased at a slower rate of 9.9% as against 43.7% in 2022.

It said the manufacturing sector recorded a marginal decrease of 0.2% as against 8.4% increase in 2022, underpinned by the decline in the index of manufacture of food products (-5.9%), manufacture of coke refined petroleum products (-5.4%) and manufacture of chemicals and chemical products (-3.3%).

However, the decrease in this sector was balanced by the growth in the manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi trailers (8.9%) and the manufacture of computer, electronic optical products (6.9%).

DoSM noted that the utility sector remained positive in 2023, with electricity and gas supply as well as water supply up by 0.4% and 2.4%, respectively.

Meanwhile, the services producer price index (SPPI) recorded a growth of 2.1%, with all subsectors recording an increase in 2023, except for the Information communication which remained unchanged.

The accommodation and food beverage service activities subsector rose by 5.6% (2022: 5.4%) while transportation went up by 2.9% (2022: 3.0%).

Concurrently, the other subsectors that recorded increases were arts, entertainment and recreation (2.3%), education (1.0%), professional (0.4%), health (0.3%) and real estate activities (0.2%).