Dr. André Gordon, past president of the Jamaica Exporters' Association, says the Producer Price Index should track the export sector. - File

The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) has reported a marginal 0.2 per cent growth in activity in the mining and quarrying (M&Q) sector, while manufacturing rose by 1.2 per cent in the month of March, according to its most recent Producer Price Index (PPI).

The index rose to 113.4 for M&Q and to 111.1 for manu-facturing in March, with refined petroleum products, up 4.4 per cent, the largest contributor to the latter sector.

But assessed on their first-quarter performance, January to March, manufacturing actually declined 2.0 per cent when compared to the preceding three-month period, while M&Q grew 1.5 per cent.

Hubert Sherad from the research division of Statin said the PPI is a matching product to the Consumer Price Index, which tracks inflation, and is meant to be used as a tool for researchers and persons involved in contract negotiations.

Subsector performance

Dr. André Gordon, immediate past president of the Jamaica Exporters' Association and head of Technological Solutions Limited, said such an index can be used to track subsector performance more closely for a more precise reading of which areas might be underperforming.

"The move by Statin to pool information is a good one, and long awaited, that will have impact on how we measure performance of producing sectors," said Gordon.

The PPI is published with a two-month lag.

Gordon, while noting that one month would have been better, said the period allows for more 'real-time' measurement of performance.

"The breakout of the PPI allows for a tie-in of what is observed in individual sectors to the aggregated data," he said.

But he was also critical of the index, saying it should provide a breakdown of the export categories in greater detail, to track performance in that particular sector.

For the fiscal year 2006/07, mining and quarrying rose 3.9 per cent, while manufacturing rose 4.2 per cent.

In March, the rise in the price of petroleum products was attributed to market fears of a disruption in the supply of crude, said Statin.

The 0.7 per cent increase for the category Food, Beverages and Tobacco "were due to the higher cost of corn and soya grains, meat, fruit and vegetable," the statistical agency said.

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