At the onset of the year, Germany's import prices kept falling, primarily due to the decreasing costs of energy. This information was revealed by data released by Destatis on Friday.
In January, the drop in import prices was noted to be 5.9 percent, year-over-year, a decrease that was slower than December's 7.0 percent. The trend of falling prices has been ongoing since March 2023.
According to Destatis, this marks the first result since the implementation of a new base year, 2021, for import and export prices.
The data also indicated that energy import prices have significantly decreased, showing a drastic annual fall of 27.7 percent. Furthermore, the prices of importing intermediate goods have also decreased, with a 7.2 percent decrease. However, there was a slight increase in the prices of capital goods, by 0.6 percent.
In terms of month-on-month comparison, there was no change in the import prices in February, contrasting with the 1.0 percent fall observed in December. The expectation was a decrease of 0.3 percent.
Interestingly, the data revealed a 1.4 percent shrink in export prices in January, compared to the previous year. This reduction was greater than the prior month's fall of 1.2 percent. Despite this yearly dip, export prices marked a slight monthly increase of 0.1 percent in January, inverting the trend from a month earlier, which had registered a 0.3 percent decrease.
