Central Statistics Office

Producer Prices

Central Statistics Office

Skehard Road

Cork

T12 X00E

Ireland

The industrial producer price index for a sector measures, in index form, changes in prices received by Irish manufacturers for goods fully or partially produced in Ireland and sold to the home and export markets by that sector.

NACE Rev. 2.

Local Units in NACE Rev. 2 Divisions 05-35 (Sections B, C and D).

Data on E36 is currently not collected. The weight share of E36 is currently below 0.5% of BTE36 and prices in E36 water treatment are stable. So the aggregate BTE36 is based on the BTD index.

The producer price index covers products that are manufactured in Ireland and sold to the domestic and export market.

Output prices include special taxes, transport costs, discounts and other reductions, and customs duties.

Initial weightings used in the compilation of the index are taken from the Census of Industrial Production indices and are compiled for the domestic, non-domestic, and total market. This is not published at a NACE level but is provided to Eurostat.

The sampling units are local units in the NACE Rev 2 groups listed in 3.3. Within these local units, prices for a sample of products are collected. 

The statistical population is all local units whose main business activity is classified to one of the Nace Rev. 2 codes listed in section 3.3. There were approx 16,000 active enterprises in these sectors in the base year 2015.

The Republic of Ireland

Data from the current series are available from January 2015.  Previous series are also available nationally as a data souce since 1975.

2015=100

Index

Month

The Wholesale Price Inquiry is a statutory statistical survey conducted each month under the provisions of the Statistics (Producer Prices Survey) Order 2019 (S.I. No. 2 of 2023) made under the Statistics Act, 1993.

The survey is also conducted in compliance with EBS Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of 27 November 2019, the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/1704 of 14 July 2021 and Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020.

Section 34 of the 1993 Statistics Act states:

The Office may provide, for statistical purposes only, information obtained in any way under this Act or the repealed enactments, in such form that it cannot be directly or indirectly related to an identifiable person or undertaking, to such persons and subject to such charges, conditions and restrictions as the Director General may determine.

Data is shared with Eurostat as provided for under the relevant European legislation.

The provision on statistical confidentiality is regulated by Sections 32 and 33 of the 1993 Statistics Act.  

Section 32 states:

All information furnished by a person, undertaking or public authority under this Act shall be used only for statistical compilation and analysis purposes. 

Section 33 states:

(1) No information obtained in any way under this Act or the repealed enactments which can be related to an identifiable person or undertaking shall, except with the written consent of that person or undertaking or the personal representative or next-of-kin of a deceased person, be disseminated, shown or communicated to any person or body except as follows: 

            (a) for the purposes of a prosecution for an offence under this Act;

            (b) to officers of statistics in the course of their duties under this Act;

            (c) for the purposes of recording such information solely for the use of the Office in such form and manner as is provided for by a contract in writing made by the Director General which protects its confidentiality to his satisfaction    

 (2) The Office may, for statistical purposes only, assign codes derived from information collected under this Act classifying undertakings listed in the administrative systems of other public authorities by economic activity and size (persons engaged) categories. 

 (3) The Taoiseach may by order prescribe such further prohibitions on the disclosure of identifiable records or information obtained under this Act or the repealed enactments for such periods as may be prescribed. 

 (4) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to require any person or undertaking to provide information in relation to a matter on which information was sought in circumstances that would entitle the person or undertaking to decline to give the information in a civil proceeding in any court or on grounds of privilege.

Confidential data are treated by suppression.

A four month in advance release calendar showing release dates on a “no later than” basis is issued by the CSO at the end of each month. This is available on the CSO website at www.cso.ie.

https://www.cso.ie/en/csolatestnews/releasecalendar/

An email link to the statistical release or publication is issued to interested parties at 11.00 am. In addition the full text of all releases and publications is made available on the CSO website at 11.00am at www.cso.ie.

Data are transmitted to Eurostat by SDMX after publication.

Monthly

None

Data on the Industrial Producer Price Index is released monthly at:

https://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/prices/wholesalepriceindex/

and annually in the Statistical Yearbook of Ireland at:

https://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/statisticalyearbookofireland/

The monthly PPI data for the 2015=100 series is available in Table WPM24 published at https://data.cso.ie/.

An annual version of the data is available in Table WPA11 at https://data.cso.ie/.

A Producer Price Index Research Microdata File (RMF) is available to researchers subject to meeting criteria as set out in the Policy on access to Research Microdata Files. This link has further details:

https://www.cso.ie/en/aboutus/lgdp/csodatapolicies/dataforresearchers/rmfregister/

Data are sent to Eurostat to be used in European aggregates and/or to be released as national data.

Overall information for the Wholesale Price Index which includes the PPI is available via the following link:

https://www.cso.ie/en/methods/prices/wholesalepriceindex/

The WPI Introduction to Series 2015=100 contains more detailed information. The latest version of this document is available here:

https://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/methods/wholesalepriceindex/WPI_Revised_Introduction_to_Series_2015=100.pdf

The Standard Report on Methods and Quality for Wholesale Price Index which includes the PPI is available here:

https://www.cso.ie/en/methods/qualityreports/wholesalepriceindex/

Percentage coverage within each NACE heading is estimated annually for domestic and export sales. PRODCOM data is compared with quotations to ensure that an enterprise's main products are included in the survey. Non-respondents and late respondents are contacted to resolve difficulties where possible. Unusual price changes are investigated each month. Quality information is not published.

The main quality issue is ensuring that the sample of respondents and products remains representative in between base years.

The indices are used by economists and expert users to evaluate and analyse developing price trends and as an indication of inflationary processes in the overall economy. The indices are used within the CSO for deflation purposes (e.g. deflation of the indices of production by National Accounts). The industrial producer price index is used by Eurostat as a measure of short and medium term economic activity of the individual Member States of the EU and of the Union as a whole. 

Not available.

All Eurostat requirements are fulfilled.

CSO has not estimated the overall accuracy of the industrial producer price index.

Due to the nature of the sample (sample of local units from the population of all local units, and non-probability sample of products within each local unit) the sampling error for the index has not been estimated.

Non-response error is minimised by following up with non-respondents using telephone or e-mail contacts. The unweighted unit response rate (proportion of local units responding) for the respondents in the Wholesale Prices Survey who provide data for Producer Price Indices during 2022 was 57.0%. Other types of non-sampling error have not been estimated.

Prices invoiced on the 15th of the reference month are requested. Questionnaires are sent to reporting units on the 15th or the following day or two. Data collection is closed eight working days before publication.

The release is published on or before the 22nd of the month for the previous month. It is considered definitive on publication.

The timeliness target is achieved every month with rare exceptions.

It is possible to compare the Irish indices with those of other European countries using the Nace Rev. 2 industry classification system.

There are no breaks in the series.

There is no direct comparability with other prices.

Aggregates are consistent with their sub-aggregates.

https://www.cso.ie/en/methods/multisectoral/responseburdenbarometer/

Results are generally not revised unless exceptional calculation errors are discovered. The same revision policy is applied nationally and in transmissions to Eurostat. No revision calendar exists. No benchmarking is done at the aggregate level.

The WPI 2015=100 series which includes the PPI was revised on 22/10/2020. See here for further information:

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/in/wpi/informationnote-wholesalepriceindexrevision2020/

There was no revision to the PPI during 2022. 

The Mean Revision for these changes for the index B_C over the 48 months from January 2018 - December 2022 was 0.78. The Mean Absolute Revision (MAR) for B_C for the same time period was 1.81.

The aggreagete index B_C was used to compare the two versions, since this is the highest level aggregate available in the two versions. The old version did not include sector D. Neither version contains E36 (see 3.3). 

Note that no data was published under the old version from August 2020 - December 2022 and so the value of the revision for these months is zero.

Data collection is based on a sample survey using Central Business Register as the frame. Local units in NACE sectors B and C are in scope.  A canvas form is issued to respondents when they are first selected into the sample. On this survey form, they are asked to self-select a sample of their most important products. In subsequent months, they are sent a survey form requesting up-to-date prices for this product sample. The sample of local units and products is updated on an ongoing basis. 

For Sector D, wholesale price of electricity on the Integrated Single Electricity Market for Ireland and Northern Ireland is used for NACE 351. 

The wholesale price of electricity is comprised of a number of components:

• the Single Market Price or SMP (the energy component of the price)

• Capacity Charges.

• Imperfection Charges = the costs of deviations between the market schedule and dispatch, uninstructed imbalances, etc.

• Market Operator Charges

Up until December 2018, the electricity index for this series (2015=100) is based on the above data which is sourced from the Single Electricity Market Operator's (SEMO) website http://www.sem-o.com. The Day Ahead price is used as the wholesale electricity price, since it accounts for over 90% of the market and is the most accurate representation of the wholesale energy price. It should be noted that the remaining electricity charges which make up the retail price such as, Transmission, Distribution, the CER’s levy and other supply company charges are not included.

SEMO launched a new market on October 1st 2018 and this required changes to the calculation of the CSO's electricity index. From January 2019 onwards, only the Day Ahead Single Market Price was used in the index, and the Pass Through costs for Generation (i.e. Capacity Payments, Market Operators Costs and Imperfection Changes) were not included. 

The Electricity Index (NACE 351) is used as the basis for the Sector D Producer Price index. This is due to the small weight of NACE 352 compared to 351 in Sector D, and the strong relationship between gas and electricity prices, due to the use of gas in the production of electricity. NACE 353 has a neglible weight in the overall Sector D. 

Monthly

The Wholesale Price Index – Inquiry Form is used in the survey. It can be accessed via the following link:

https://www.cso.ie/en/methods/surveyforms/wholesalepriceindex/

Data are also collected by telephone, email and electronic questionnaire.

Edits compare values against previous returns (range checks). If differences exceed specified thresholds, an edit is raised. These are then analysed and records are corrected as appropriate.

Prices are regarded as unchanged for non-response.

The basic indices are weighted by the value of sales of an economic sector.

The output price index is a Laspeyres index.

Further details on the data compliation are provided in the Introduction to Series 2015=100 here:

https://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/methods/wholesalepriceindex/WPI_Revised_Introduction_to_Series_2015=100.pdf

The data is not seasonally adjusted.

None