Malaysia PPI Inflation At 20-Month Low

(RTTNews) - Malaysia's producer price inflation eased for the fifth straight month in October to reach its lowest level in more than one-and-a-half years, largely due to a sharp fall in prices for the agriculture, forestry, and fishing segments, figures from the Department of Statistics showed on Wednesday.

Producer prices climbed 4.0 percent year-over-year in October, slower than the 4.9 increase in September.

Further, the latest PPI Inflation was the slowest since the current sequence of price growth began in February last year.

Among sectors, prices for manufacturing grew the most, by 7.3 percent annually in October. This was followed by a 4.9 percent gain in the water supply segment.

Prices for electricity and gas supply rose 1.2 percent. Meanwhile, an 18.2 percent slump registered in the price index for agriculture, forestry, and fishing. Mining prices dropped slightly by 0.5 percent.

On the basis of stage of processing, prices for crude materials declined 8.7 percent in October, while prices for intermediate materials, suppliers and components gained 9.1 percent.

On a month-on-month basis, producer prices edged down 0.1 percent from September, when they slid by 1.4 percent.