Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) on Tuesday reported moderate year-on-year producer price index (PPI) rises across agriculture, mining, electricity, water and manufacturing during January.

The organisation, which published the first revamped PPI series examining specific industries, reported that its ‘headline’ PPI – final manufactured goods – recorded a year-on-year change of 5.8%.

This was compared with a restated PPI of 6.3% for December 2012.

Year-on-year, food products, beverages and tobacco products contributed 2.2 percentage points, while coke, petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products added 1.3 percentage points.

The monthly rise was attributed to the 0.2 percentage point contributions of transport equipment and metals, machinery, equipment and computing equipment.

Stats SA executive manager for price and employment statistics Patrick Kelly said last week that the new PPI will not feature an aggregate headline PPI, but rather five distinct PPIs covering agriculture, mining, electricity, water and manufacturing.

The PPI for final manufactured goods will be considered the 'headline' PPI.

The index, which is mainly used by businesses as a contract price escalator, reflects changes in the prices charged by producers across more than 100 diverse industries.

Manufacturing has been split into those products that were usually an input into further processing, such as metal sheets, and those that are destined for final demand – products that would not be further processed, such as motor vehicles.

“This means that there will no longer be an aggregate headline PPI, which was a composite of the price changes over the vast variety of products generated by South African industry,” he said.

Meanwhile, the intermediate manufactured goods industry also reported a 5.8% rise year-on-year, as chemicals, rubber and plastic products and textiles and leather goods added 1.8 and 1.5 percentage points respectively.

Stats SA said a 1.4% month-on-month rise in January was reported after basic and fabricated metals contributed 0.8 percentage points.

Meanwhile, the electricity and water, the agriculture, forestry and fishing and the mining industries reported year-on-year increases of 12.3%, 3% and 7.2% respectively during the month of January.

Compared with December 2012, the PPI recorded a month-on-month improvement of 1.1%, 1.4% and 2.5% for the electricity and water, the agriculture, forestry and fishing and the mining industries respectively.