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Malaysia: Producer price index lower in April

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s producer price Index (PPI) declined to 3% in April 2023 from 2.9% in March 2023, says the Statistics Department.

The PPI reduction for April was mainly due to the decline in agriculture, forestry and fishing as well as mining sectors, the department said in a statement yesterday.

It said the agriculture, forestry, and fishing sector continued to show a negative trend for 10 consecutive months, recording down 26% compared with 28.7% in March.

Meanwhile, the mining sector also declined by 4.7% in April 2023 from 11.5% in the previous month, due to a decrease in the extraction of crude petroleum index by 12.5%. On a monthly basis, the PPI for local production posted a marginal increase of 0.2% in April 2023 as compared to 0.3% in the prior month.

The agriculture, forestry, and fishing sector went up 0.8%, attributed to the increase in the growing of perennial crops index (1.1%), while the mining sector posted an increase of 0.5%, in tandem with the increase of extraction of crude petroleum index (1.5%).

The manufacturing sector inched up 0.1%, due to the manufacture of food products (0.9%) and manufacture of chemicals and chemical products (0.7%) indices.

On the other hand, the electricity and gas sector decreased by 0.6% as against 0.5% in the previous month, while the water supply sector remained unchanged. — Bernama