Malaysia Producer Prices Rise 0.3%

(RTTNews) - Malaysia's producer prices increased for the first time in five months in February, largely due to a sharp rise in mining costs, figures from the Department of Statistics showed on Wednesday.

Producer prices rose 0.3 percent year-on-year in February, reversing a 0.6 percent decrease in January.

Among sectors, manufacturing prices fell 0.7 percent annually in February, while mining prices rebounded 5.3 percent.

Prices in the utility sector rose only 0.1 percent, while the price index for agriculture, forestry, and fishing grew at an accelerated rate of 6.0 percent.

Based on the stage of processing, prices for crude materials rose 5.6 percent in February.

On a month-on-month basis, producer prices climbed 0.7 percent in February versus a 0.1 percent drop in January.