Palestinian Wholesale Price Index During 2020 & the Fourth Quarter of 2020

 Decrease in the Wholesale Price[1] Index (WPI) During 2020

The overall Wholesale Price Index (WPI) in Palestine with its base year (2007=100) reached 125.48 in 2020, which indicates a decrease by 0.10% compared with 2019.

Prices of WPI for 2020 decreased due to the decrease in the prices of Fishing goods by 2.22%, Mining and quarrying group  by 1.56%, and Manufacturing group by 0.24%, while the prices of Agricultural goods increased by 0.23%.

The prices of imported products decreased by 1.00%, while the prices of local products increased by 0.68% compared with the previous year.

Sharp Decrease in the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) During the Fourth Quarter of 2020

The overall WPI in Palestine with its base year (2007=100) reached 125.53 in the Fourth quarter 2020, which Recorded a Sharp decrease of 1.63% compared with the Third quarter 2020.

WPI for local products (2007=100) reached 129.26 in the Fourth quarter 2020, which indicates a sharp decrease of 3.88% compared with the Third quarter 2020.

 WPI for imported products (2007=100) remained constant at the level of 120.75 in the Fourth quarter 2020 compared with the Third quarter 2020.

WPI for the Fourth Quarter of 2020 decreased due to the decrease in the activities of Agriculture by 3.97%, the activities of Mining and Quarrying by 1.68%, and the activities of Manufacturing by 0.46%, while the activities of Fishing increased by 2.02%.

The table shows the relative share and the quarterly percent changes in WPI by major activities in Palestine for the period: First - Fourth quarter 2020

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 Wholesale Price Index has been replaced with data collection via phone and websites for all sale outlets in all of the Palestinian Governorates instead of collecting data face to face from the field.

2.    The number of sale outlets, from which Wholesale Prices are collected in Palestine, reached 430 outlets in the fourth quarter 2020. 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:

3.    The number of price observations collected to compile the Palestinian Wholesale Price index is 3,543 price observations; where 93% was collected in the fourth quarter 2020. Hence, the observations collected are as follows:

4.    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.

5.    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.

Please note that the press release in English is brief compared to the Arabic version.