- A decrease of 0.02% in MEPI indicator in the First Half of 2024.
- The annual indicator of MEPI increased by 0.47%.
The National Planning Council (NPC) has released the Machinery & Equipment Price Index (MEPI) for the First half 2024, Which reached 99.91 points, decrease by 0.02% compared with the second half of 2023, and a 0.47% increase of MEPI, when compared with the counterpart of the previous year 2023. The MEPI is one the economic indicators produced by the Council, which is calculated using 2018 as a base year instead of 2013, to contribute with other statistical indicators for studying and analysing the economic level of the state. This index aims to measure of the average change in the selling prices of machinery and equipment, which are categorized as capital goods, by selecting a given basket of goods and monitoring their prices over subsequent periods of time with respect to that in a previous and fixed period called the base period.
The value of imports is used to calculate the relative weight for each MEPI groups, and international standards are considered and followed in a data collections and index dissemination. MEPI basket contents of nine main groups, their weight disaggregated according to a table (1), where the “Transportation equipment” group has the highest importance in the index, with a percentage of 29.43, while the “Office, Accounting and Computing machinery” group occupied the lowest percentage, with a percentage of 2.48%. Central Product Classification version 2 (CPC Ver.2) is used to classify the MEPI from Level 1 to level 5.
The data of machinery and equipment prices are collected from key and specified sources to be comparable for different periods of time. They are collected on a semi-annual basis in January and July of each year. On average of 367 quotations are collected from a sample that includes 67 establishments. All data are collected through direct contact or electronic collection from different sources.
A comparison of the First Half of 2024 with the Second Half of 2023:
An analysis on [H-o-H basis] of MEPI [First half, 2024 against Second half, 2023] shows that six of the main groups were increased namely: “Radio, television and communication equipment” by 2.33%, “Medical appliances precision and optical instruments” by 0.93%,“ Office, accounting and computing machinery” by 0.42%,“ Musical instruments” by 0.40%, “Metal tools and tools” by 0.37%, “Special-purpose machines” by 0.31%. A decrease recorded in “Machinery and electrical appliances” by 1.30%, “Transport Equipment” by 0.55%, “General, purpose machinery” by 0.06%. Table (1) shows the Semiannual and annual comparison of the MEPI.
A comparison of the First Half, 2024 with the First Half, 2023 (Yearly Changes):
A comparison of the MEPI of first half, 2024 with the first half, 2023, showed that, there has been an increase by 0.47%, affected by prices rise in groups, namely: “Medical appliances precision and optical instruments” by 4.35%, “Metal tools and tools” by 2.46%,“Transport equipment” by 0.92%, “General, purpose machinery” by 0.35%, “Special-purpose machines” by 0.23%. As for decrease, it was recorded in three groups as follow: “Musical instruments” by 2.15%, “Radio, television and communication equipment” by 1.47%, “Office, accounting and computing machinery” by 0.49. Also, the last group remained the same “Machinery and electrical appliances”.
