Category Archives: Office for National Statistics

Ex-Factory Prices Drops

20 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in ACCRA, Africa, banks, Business, Get rich quick, Ghana, Inflation, Inflation rate, investment, Manufacturing, Office for National Statistics, Price, Uncategorized

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Reflex Eco Group – Ghana News

by Samuel Boadi (local journalist)

This Blog is sponsored by http://www.reflexecogroup.com

Ex-Factory prices reduced from 7 percent recorded in July 2012 to 5 percent in July 2013 year-on-year representing a decrease of 2.0 percentage points.

According to Government Statistician, Dr Philomena Nyarko, who officially launched the producer price index (PPI) for July 2013, the month-on-month change in producer prices between June 2013 and July 2013 was also -0.5 percent.

Dr. Nyarko said the producer price inflation in the Mining and Quarrying subsector decreased substantially by 11.7 percent.

She noted that producer price inflation for the manufacturing sector which constitutes more than two-thirds of total industry increased to 10.9 percent from a rate of 10.6 percent in June this year adding that the rate for the utilities sub-sector decreased marginally by 0.39 percentage points in July 2013.

She further said during the 12 months period from July last year to July this year, the highest year-on-year inflation for all industry was recorded in October with 19.1 percent whiles July 2013 recorded the lowest.

Dr. Nyarko indicated that between July and November 2012, the producer price inflation fluctuated until December 2012.

She however said that from December 2012 to February 2013, the rate declined to 9.1 percent but increased steadily to record 10.6 percent in March this year and subsequently declined consistently to record 5.0 percent in July 2013.

“During the month of July 2013, eight out of the 16 major groups in the manufacturing subsector recorded inflation rates higher that the sector average of 10.9 percent”, she said adding that the manufacture of furniture; manufacturing recorded the highest inflation rate of 32.2 percent while producer prices in the manufacture of electrical machinery and apparatus recorded the lowest inflation rate of -5.6 percent over the one year period.

Commenting on the petroleum sector, she said between July 2012 and December 2012, the inflation rate in the petroleum sub-sector remained relatively stable adding that it however dropped in January 2013 and subsequently rose in March 2013.

“The rate remained unchanged in April 2013 but thereafter increased steadily to record 19.3 percent in Jun2013. In July this year the rate declined to 18.5 percent due to slight declines in the prices of marine gas oil and aviation fuel.

“The afore-mentioned figures for the month of July 2013 are provisional and are subject to revision when additional data become available.”

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UK inflation rate rises to 2.7%

18 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by in bank of england, cpi, IHS Global Insight, Office for National Statistics

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the rate of consumer price inflation (CPI) increased to 2.7% in May, up from 2.4% in April, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

The ONS said the rise was due to a record increase in airfares and higher fuel prices.

Airfares rose by 22% between April and May, the highest increase since comparable records began in 2001.

The Bank of England has said it expects inflation to exceed 3% this year.

May’s rise in inflation was higher than analysts predicted.

The price of clothing and footwear rose by 1.2% month-on-month, after a colder than normal May saw the cost of women’s outdoor clothing increase.

However, food and drink prices fell, with a reduction in the cost of meat, vegetables, fruit, sugar and jams.

The Bank of England expects inflation to remain above its 2% target until early 2016.

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Unemployment Falls as Economic Recovery Gains Momentum

12 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in April, jobless claims, labour economics, London, Office for National Statistics, peter Dixon, Recession, United States

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Reference – Bloomberg

U.K. jobless claims fell more than economists forecast in May and a wider measure of unemployment also declined, providing further evidence that an economic recovery is under way.

Jobless claims fell 8,600 to 1.51 million, leaving the rate at 4.5 percent, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. Joblessness as measured by International Labour Organisation methods fell 5,000 in the three months through April to 2.51 million, a rate of 7.8 percent. Employment rose 24,000.

Recent data show the economy is gathering momentum after a return to growth in the first quarter, and surveys suggest companies plan to recruit staff in the coming months. Still, the labor market may be slow to respond after proving resilient last year as Britain struggled to avoid another recession.

“The jobs market appears to be moderately improving,” said Peter Dixon, an economist at Commerzbank AG in London. “We may see a pickup in output without a further increase in employment. Employment might show a lag to any increase in output.”

Pay growth accelerated to 1.3 percent in the three months through April from 0.6 percent. Some of the increase may be explained by delayed bonus payments as highly paid workers sought to take advantage of a cut in the top income-tax rate to 45 percent from 50 percent that took effect in April. Basic pay growth was 0.9 percent versus 0.8 percent in the previous period.

The outlook for jobs remains “firmly positive,” with construction set to emerge from the recession that has gripped the sector for the past five years, a Manpower survey this week showed.

Still, the economy faces headwinds from recession in the euro area, Britain’s biggest export market, and government austerity at home. In addition, companies that curbed costs during the recession by cutting wages rather than firing workers may want to see productivity improve before adding staff.

The claimant count has fallen for seven straight months. In April, it fell 11,800 instead of the 7,300 drop initially reported.

Public sector employment fell 22,000 in the first quarter to 5.7 million, the lowest since December 2001. Private sector employment rose 46,000 to 24.1 million.

 

 

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Inflation CPI V.S. RPI

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in bank of england, Consumer price index, harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, Monetary Policy Committee, Office for National Statistics, Retail Price Index

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Today we were given inflation figures of April which fell to 2.4% in April, according to the Office for National Statistics, down from 2.8% in March.

Lower petrol prices and air fares helped the consumer prices index (CPI) to fall for the first time since September 2012.

But what we don’t know from these figures are that food prices continued to rise as cold weather hit crop production

and more importantly the measure of CPI does not take into account real figures of inflation affecting the Lay person.

Well here is why the Government prefers CPI Figures:

What is CPI?

CPI forms the basis for the Government’s inflation target that the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee is required to achieve.

It is an internationally comparable measure of inflation, published in the UK until December 2003 as the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP).

Although the name has changed, the CPI and HICP remain one and the same index, calculated according to rules specified in a series of European Regulations.

What is RPI?

RPI is currenly used to index various prices and incomes including tax allowances, state benefits, pensions and index-linked gilts. Like CPI, it looks at the prices of items we spend money on, but it includes housing costs – such as council tax – and mortgage interest payments.

The Office for National Statistics announced in January 2013 that there would be no change to the method of calculating RPI, bringing relief to pensioners. But, the ONS did recommend a new inflation.

 

 

RPI  Calculation

The United Kingdom RPI is constructed as follows:

A base year or starting point is chosen. This becomes the standard against which price changes are measured. A list of items bought by an average family is drawn up. This is facilitated by the Living Costs and Food Survey.  A set of weights are calculated, showing the relative importance of the items in the average family budget – the greater the share of the average household bill, the greater the weight. The price of each item is multiplied by the weight, adjusting the item’s size in proportion to its importance.

   The price of each item must be found in both the base year and the year of comparison (or month). This enables the percentage change to be calculated over the desired time period.In practice the comparison is made over shorter periods, and the weights are frequently reassessed. Detailed information is published on the Office for National Statistics website.

The following items are not included in the CPI: Council tax, mortgage interest payments, house depreciation, buildings insurance, ground rent, solar PV feed in tariffs and other house purchase cost such as estate agents’ and conveyancing fees.[12]

CPI is usually lower, though this is due more to the differences in the calculation formulas for the indices than to the differences in coverage. The UK Government announced in the June 2010 budget that CPI would be used in place of RPI for uprating of some benefits with effect from April 2011.[13]

Regarding State Pensions the UK Government confirmed in their autumn statement in 2011 that these would go up by the greater of the CPI, the RPI, or 2.5%. [7] The variability of the change in RPI is shown in the graph on the right. This was one of the arguments used in favour of changing to RPIX.

 

Calculating the CPI for a single item

 

Current item price ($) = (base year price) * (Current CPI) / (Base year CPI)

or\

Where 1 is usually the comparison year and CPI1 is usually an index of 100.Alternatively, the CPI can be performed as

. The “updated cost” (i.e. the price of an item at a given year, e.g.: the price of bread in 2010) is divided by the initial year (the price of bread in 1970), then multiplied by one hundred.[2]

Calculating the CPI for multiple items

Many but not all price indices are weighted averages using weights that sum to 1 or 100.

Example: The prices of 95,000 items from 22,000 stores, and 35,000 rental units are added together and averaged. They are weighted this way: Housing: 41.4%, Food and Beverage: 17.4%, Transport: 17.0%, Medical Care: 6.9%, Other: 6.9%, Apparel: 6.0%, Entertainment: 4.4%. Taxes (43%) are not included in CPI computation.[3] where the weight_i’s sum to 1 or 100.

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