Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 30
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
The producer price index (PPI) for the 12-month period to the ninth Iranian calendar month of Azar (ended on Dec. 22) indicates an increase by seven percent year on year.
The figure shows a 0.8 percent decline compared to the preceding 12-month period.
Setting the Iranian fiscal year 1390 (March 21, 2011 to March 20, 2012) as the main one, that is 1390=100, the PPI reached 216.3 for the Iranian month of Azar this year (which fell on Oct. 22 to Dec. 22), the Central Bank of Iran reported.
This comes with a slight increase of 0.1 percent compared to the preceding month. The PPI for the mentioned month shows a 3.4-percent growth compared to the same month of last year.
The highest growth was related to the health and social service sector, with 21.9 percent growth, and the lowest growth was related to the manufacturing sector, with 2.9 percent growth.
PPI measures the average change in selling prices received by domestic producers of goods and services over time. The PPI envisages three areas of production: industry-based, commodity-based, and stage-of-processing-based companies.
PPI in Iran is measured based on the prices of 708 items of goods and services categorized into eight groups of agriculture, forestation, and fishery, industry, transportation and warehousing, hotels and restaurants, information and telecommunication, education, health and social welfare, and other public and private services.
The core PPI can serve multiple roles in improving investment-making decisions because it can serve as a leading indicator for Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is the most frequently cited measure of inflation.