22 August 2006

Printing Industry price levels

Price levels in the printing industry can be monitored by Producer Price Indices (PPIs). PPIs measure the price changes of goods bought and sold by UK manufacturers; they provide a key measure of inflation, alongside other indicators such as the Retail Price Index (RPI) and the Consumer Price Index (CPI). They are often used to monitor and measure inflation for different sectors of the industry; many PPIs are also used in price variation clauses in trading contracts. Detailed information from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is available for input prices (materials and fuels bought by UK manufacturers for processing) and output prices (prices of goods produced by UK manufacturers) for the printing industry. The data provide evidence that input price rises are outstripping general price inflation whilst output prices have been on a significant downward trend over the last ten years (they have fallen by more than 9% from their 1996 peak). Quarterly data for 2006 show printing industry output prices remain under pressure; price levels for Q2 2006 are only 0.8% greater than the same period in 2005, down from 1% in Q1 2006 (for comparison; RPI inflation for Q2 2006 was 3.0%). The latest quarterly figure on input prices reveals inflation of 3.5% for Q2 2006. Further data on price indices for the printing industry is now available to BPIF members on the Printdata website