Producer price increase slows down

TIRANA, Dec. 5 – Apart from falling sales due to a drop in domestic purchasing power lower external demand, Albanian producers are also facing higher production costs. Latest INSTAT data show producer prices continued their rising trend even in the third quarter of 2012, rising by 0.5 percent year-on-year. However, compared to the second quarter of the year producer prices were down by 1.1 percent. INSTAT data show the Producer Price Index (PPI), measuring price changes from the makers of a product, rose by 0.9 percent y-o-y for the processing industry and 0.4 percent for the production distribution of electricity, gas and water. For the extractive industry, the PPI dropped by 1.1 percent PPI in the extraction of crude oil, rose by 4 percent y-o-y. Meanwhile, the PPI for domestic products dropped by 1.2 percent compared to the second quarter of 2012 with producer prices in the processing and extractive industries down by 1.5 percent and 2.9 percent respectively. The export price index also dropped by 1.1 percent compared to the previous quarter with prices in the processing industry which accounts for the majority of Albanian exports down 1 percent.