For the second consecutive month, the producer price index for the “Manufacturing industries excluding oil refining” sector rose during the month of February 2023.
According to data collected by the High Commission for Planning (HCP), it has indeed recorded a slight increase of 0.4% over the past month compared to January 2023.
This increase is attributed to the increase in the prices of “Chemicals” and “Manufacture of beverages” (0.7%), “Metallurgy” (2.1%), “Manufacture of electrical equipment (0.6%), said the public body headed by Ahmed Lahlimi Alami.
This development is also linked to the rise in prices for “Food industries” (0.2%), “Automotive industry” (0.3%), “Other manufacturing industries” (9.8%), of the “Clothing industry” (0.4%) and the “Textile industry” (0.1%), underlined the HCP in an information note relating to the consumer price index industrial, energy and mining production for the month of February 2023.
Also according to this institution, responsible for the production, analysis and publication of official statistics in Morocco, the increase observed during the second month of the year is also explained by the 1.1% drop in prices. of “Manufacture of metal products” and 0.6% of “Manufacture of rubber and plastic products”, she said from the same source.
As a reminder, the producer price index for the “Manufacturing industries excluding oil refining” sector for the month of January 2023 had posted an increase of 0.3% compared to December 2022.
As the High Commission had explained in its previous information note, this increase was linked to the 8.4% increase in the prices of the “Manufacture of tobacco products”, the “Automotive industry” and “Manufacture of metal products” (0.9%), “Chemical industry” (0.4%), “Food industry” (0.2%), ‘clothing’ (0.8%), ‘Textile industry’ (0.6%) and ‘Manufacture of rubber and plastic products’ (0.1%).
In its information note at the time, the High Commission also attributed this development to the 1.4% drop in prices for “Metallurgy” and 0.2% for “Manufacture of electrical equipment”.
As in the first month of the current year, the producer price indices for the “Extractive industries”, “Electricity production and distribution” and “Water production and distribution” sectors experienced a stagnation during the month of February, noted the public body.
It is important to recall that the increases in the producer price index for the “Manufacturing industries excluding oil refining” sector in the first two months of this year (January and February 2023) were preceded by a drop recorded in during the month of December 2022.
Indeed, the producer price index for this sector had recorded a drop of 0.8% during the month of December 2022 compared to November 2022.
According to the explanations of the HCP at the time, this drop was the result of the 3.9% drop in prices for the “Chemical Industry”, 2.2% for “Metallurgy” and 0.1% for “Manufacturing”. rubber and plastic products. It was also due to the rise of 0.2% in the prices of “Food industry” and of “Manufacture of electrical equipment”, of 0.4% of the “Clothing industry” and of 0. 1% of “Textile Industry”.
Alain Bouithy