Malaysian Producer Prices Rise Further

(RTTNews) - Malaysia's producer prices increased for the second straight month in March, largely due to a sharp rise in mining costs, figures from the Department of Statistics showed on Friday.

Producer prices rose 1.6 percent year-on-year in March, faster than the 0.3 percent increase in February.

Among sectors, manufacturing prices climbed 8.3 percent annually in March, and those for agriculture, forestry, and fishing grew 5.5 percent.

Prices in the manufacturing sector rose 0.6 percent, while the price index for the utility sector increased only 0.1 percent.

On a month-on-month basis, producer prices climbed 1.6 percent in March versus a 0.7 percent gain in February.

The latest official data showed that consumer price inflation in Malaysia held steady at 1.8 percent in March. Food inflation slowed somewhat, while utility costs grew at an accelerated pace.