RAMALLAH, Sunday, May 31, 2020 (WAFA) – The overall Producer Price Index (PPI) for  Palestine with its base year (2018 = 100) reached 95.35 in April 2020, as it decreased by 0.55% compared to March 2020, said the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).

PPI for locally consumed products (2018 = 100) reached 95.25 in April 2020, which indicates a decrease of 0.61% compared to March 2020.

PPI for local exported products (2018 = 100) reached 96.24 in April 2020, which indicates a slight increase of 0.02% compared to March 2020.

PCBS said that as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and the measures taken to contain its spread, the data collection process for Producer Price Index has been replaced with data collection via phone and websites for all Industrial facilities in all of the Palestinian Governorates instead of the face to face mechanism.

The number of Industrial facilities, from which Producer Prices are collected in Palestine, reached 365 facilities, said the PCBS.

To estimate missing data, the PCBS said it used the Group Relative Method by estimating the prices based on the price change in the remaining sources for the same category. “Accordingly and in case of the closure of an entire source on a temporary basis, all the prices of that source are estimated based on the change in the prices of the sources that share the same items which are collected from that source.”

M.N