Producer prices, construction costs slightly up

TIRANA, Dec. 10 – Producer prices slightly rose by 0.1 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2013, ending their downward trend, according to a report by state Institute of Statistics (INSTAT). Compared to the second quarter of 2013, the PPI, measuring price changes from the makers of a product rose by 0.7 percent.
INSTAT data show the PPI dropped by 1.5 percent y-o-y for the extractive industry and rose by 0.2 percent for the manufacturing industry. Producer prices in the ‘production, distribution of electricity, gas and water’ rose by 0.1 percent.
The PPI for domestic products declined by 0.3 percent compared to the second quarter of 2013 with producer prices in the extractive industry up by 0.7 percent and prices in the manufacturing industry down by 0.4 percent. The export price index rose by 0.5 percent compared to the second quarter of 2013 with prices in the processing industry which accounts for the majority of Albanian exports up by 1.3 percent. The export price index for the extractive industry fell by 3.9 percent compared to the second quarter of 2013.
Meanwhile, construction costs registered a slight increase even in the third quarter of 2013 when they rose by 0.5 percent year-on-year but fell by 0.1 percent compared to the second quarter of 2013. Data from the country’s Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) show the slight increase in the construction cost index was a result of higher material, wages, machinery and transport expenditure.
The Construction Cost Index calculates the difference of expenditure in construction, taking into consideration the change of basic input prices such as construction materials, construction vehicles and equipment, as well as expenses for employees.
In crisis since 2008, due to falling purchasing power especially from crisis-hit migrants, the construction sector has failed to recover during the past four years also due to lending standards becoming tighter as bad loans stand at a record 24 percent.