FAQ on Producer and International Trade Price Indices

Introduction

The Singapore Department of Statistics compiles the following producer and international trade price indices on a monthly basis:

1. Singapore Manufactured Products Price Index (SMPPI) which measures the changes in the prices of goods produced by our local manufacturers for sale in the local and international markets.
2. Import Price Index (IPI) which tracks changes in the prices of goods imported into Singapore over time.
3. Export Price Index (EPI) which measures changes in the prices of goods exported out of Singapore over time.
4. Domestic Supply Price Index (DSPI) is a composite index used for monitoring the price trends of goods used in the domestic economy i.e. locally manufactured goods and imports which are retained for use in the domestic economy.

The first series of the IPI, SMPPI and DSPI were officially released in 1974 followed by the first publication of the EPI in 1978.

Method

The commodities covered under the four price indices are classified according to the commodity groups as defined by the Standard International Trade Classification, version 4.1. Each price index is a weighted average of the changes in the prices of a fixed basket of commodities. The basket of goods is reviewed at regular intervals to ensure that the commodities selected are representative of international trade and local manufacturing activities. Each month, approximately 5,000 prices of products from 2,000 companies are collected for the compilation of the IPI, EPI and SMPPI.

Information on the compilation methodology of these price indices is available from the following articles:

1. Rebasing of Import and Export Price Indices (Base Year 2018=100) (3.2 MB)
2. Rebasing of Singapore Manufactured Products and Domestic Supply Price Indices (Base Year 2018=100) (3.0 MB)

Uses of Price Indices

• The four price indices are used for deflating the National Accounts to estimate the real growth of the economy.
• SMPPI is a price deflator of manufacturing output and is used in the compilation of the Index of Industrial Production.
• IPI and EPI are important indices in their rights. They are also used to deflate external trade values to obtain trade volume or real trade adjusted for inflation.
• DSPI and EPI are used as price deflators of wholesale trade.
• DSPI is also used to monitor short term inflationary trends of the economy.

Publication

Monthly trend analyses of the four price indices are published one month after the reporting month in the following reports:

• Monthly Import and Export Price Indices
• Monthly Singapore Manufactured Products and Domestic Supply Price Indices

The price indices are also available from:

• Yearbook of Statistics
• Quarterly/Annual Economic Survey of Singapore
• SingStat Table Builder

Types of Commodity Collected