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Ghana's producer price inflation rises to 23.1 pct in June

Frank Odulo waits for customers at his memorabilia stall in Accra, Ghana, in a file photo. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

By Kwasi Kpodo ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghana's annual producer price inflation rose sharply to 23.1 percent in June from a revised figure of 18.8 percent the previous month, driven by currency depreciation and higher cement prices, the national statistics office said on Wednesday. Ghana's stubbornly high inflation rate, outstripping the average in the region, is just one of the challenges facing the West African nation, whose exports of oil and gold have been hit by a slump in prices. Ghana began a three-year International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme in April designed to restore fiscal stability and curb a sharp increase in its debt levels. Government statistician Philomena Nyarko said the significant rise in the price index was influenced by changes in the extractive and manufacturing sectors. "The depreciation of the cedi in June was a key factor in relation to the price of gold which is a key component of the mining and quarrying subsector," she told a news conference. "There were also increases in the price of cement and textiles." She said producer inflation for manufacturing, which comprises petroleum refining, rose most by 5.2 percentage points to 21.9 percent. The mining and quarrying sub-sector rose by 4.6 percentage points to 30.0 percent, driven by gold prices. Producer inflation for utilities edged up 0.2 percentage points to 20.8 percent. The month-on-month change in PPI between May and June was 4.4 percent, Nyarko said. Producer price inflation is an advance indicator of consumer price inflation which rose to 17.1 percent in June, from 16.9 percent the month before.