The Central Statistics Office (CSO) published figures of the producer price index for agriculture (PPI-A) during the second semester of 2011.
The PPI-A that tracked price evolution showed an index of 100.6 in June as compared to 102.6. This is attributed to the combined effects of a rise of 0.7 per cent in April followed by decreases of 0.9 and 1.8 per cent in May and June respectively.
The index for the sub-group, “crop products” which carries 75.6 per cent of the total weight, stagnated in April and declined by 1.4 per cent and 3.4 per cent in May and June respectively. The index for “sugar cane” for the period falling between July 2010 and June 2011 has been revised from 74 points to reach 74.1 in the light of the final price of sugar for the 2010 crop.
The price index for “other crop products” increased marginally by 0.1 per cent in April, as a result of the combined effects of a 7.6 per cent rise in the price of root crops and 7.7 per cent decline in the prices of fruits.
The overall price index for the second quarter of 2011 went up by 0.9 per cent as compared to 0.2 per cent rise in 2010.