Pretoria - The Producer Price Inflation (PPI) for September came in at -3.7 percent year-on-year, Statistics South Africa announced on Thursday.
This rate is 0.3 of a percentage point higher than the corresponding annual rate of -4,0 percent in August 2009, said Stats SA.
The higher annual rate in September could be explained by increases in the annual rate of change in the Producer Price Indices for products of petroleum and coal, basic metals, mining and quarrying.
Additionally these increases were partially counteracted by decreases in the annual rate of change for electricity, food and manufacturing.
Standard Bank economist Danelee van Dyk said contributing to the surprise figure, were the decreases in the food prices at factory gates, as well a fall in electricity prices because of the switch from high consumption in winter to low consumption in summer.
