Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)

 

 

Palestinian Producer Price Index, March, 2020/04

 

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics continues to work on data collection and production of Palestinian Producer Price Index in light of COVID-19 (CORONA VIRUS) pandemic

 

 

Decrease in the Producer Price[1] Index (PPI) during April, 04/2020

 

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.

                                                               

PPI for locally consumed products

Producer Price Index 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

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

 

 

The changes of PPI for April 2020 were traced

 back to changes in prices of the following major activities compared to the previous month:

 

­­­­­­­Major Activities	% Change
Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply	- 1.27%
Agriculture, forestry and fishing goods	- 1.24%
Manufacturing	- 0.08%
Mining and quarrying	+ 0.17%
Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities	+ 0.10%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      Notice for Users:

1. As a result of CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) outbreak, and the implemented measures to limit 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 collecting data face to face from the field.
2. The process of collecting data of agricultural commodities that is collected from the farm gate was complete.
3. The number of Industrial facilities, from which Producer Prices are collected in Palestine, reached 365 facilities. Thus and in light of the temporary closure of many outlets due to applying the Palestinian emergency plan, the completion of data collection process is as follows:

Region	Number of Collected Outlets	Number of Non-Collected Outlets	Percentage of Collected Outlets
Palestine	349	16	95%

 

 

4. The number of price observations collected to compile the Palestinian Producer Price index is 1,475 price observations; where 88% was collected in April 2020. Hence, the observations collected are as follows:
   
   
   

Region	Number of Actual Collected Observations	Estimated Number of Observations	Percentage of Actual Collected Observation
Palestine	1,296	179	88%

 

 

 

 

 

5. International recommendations were followed in estimating the missing data, which are mentioned in Price Index guide. Moreover, the (Group Relative Method) is one of the best methods used to estimate the missing data, which is the process of estimating the prices based on the change in the prices of 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.
6. The estimate is also used at the (Next Level Up in Aggregation) in case of the disappearance of the index for a whole sub-group or a higher group reaching up to the major groups that constitute the index.