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Producer Price Inflation (PPI) for all industry in April 2014 recorded 31.5 percent year-on-year, representing an increase of 3.7 percentage points over the figure recorded in March, this year, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) announced yesterday. Government Statistician Dr Philomena Nyarko, who disclosed this at a press conference in Accra, attributed the increase in prices to the depreciating value of the cedi and the falling gold prices on the world market. The April 2014 PPI, she mentioned, was the highest since January 2014 especially after the index recorded consistent increase over the last seven months. The month-on-month change in producer prices between March 2014 and April 2014 was 2.7 percent. In April 2014, Dr Nyarko said the producer price inflation in the mining and quarrying subsector increased by 10.7 percentage points over the March 2014 rate of 14.5 percent to record 25.2 percent in April 2014. Manufacturing, which constitutes more than two-thirds of total industry, increased by 2.7 percentage points to record 27.7 percent. She added that the rate for the utilities subsector increased marginally to record 56.5 percent in April. Between April and August 2013, she said the rate declined continuously to record 4.7 percent in August 2013, the lowest rate. In September 2013, however, the rate inched up to record 5.8 percent. According to GSS computations, five out of the 16 major groups in the manufacturing sub-sector recorded inflation rates higher than the sector average of 27.7 percent during the month of April. Machinery and equipment manufacturing recorded the highest rate of 76 percent whilst the manufacture of electrical machinery and apparatus recorded the lowest rate of negative 0.7 percent over the one year period. From April 2013, the petroleum price inflation in the petroleum subsector increased consistently to record 33.6 percent in September 2013. The rate fluctuated between October and December 2013 after which it increased consistently to record 56.1 percent in February 2014. It declined to 44.7 percent after which it increased to 47.2 percent in April 2014. However, the utilities sub-sector recorded the lowest month-on-month inflation figure of 0.3 percent.