Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union (EU), reported that producer prices rose by 0.6% in August after declining by 0.5% in July. This was the first increase since the beginning of the year. In annual terms, producer prices declined by 11.5%, accelerating compared to July (-7.6%). This marked the steepest decline in producer prices on record. Consensus estimates suggested a 11.6% drop. Meanwhile, among the EU countries, producer prices rose by 0.5% compared to July and fell by 10.5% per annum.
The data showed that on a monthly basis, producer prices in the eurozone increased by 2.5% in the energy sector, while prices remained stable for capital goods and for non-durable consumer goods, and prices decreased by 0.1% for durable consumer goods and by 0.4% for intermediate goods. Meanwhile, excluding energy, producer prices decreased by 0.2%.
Among the EU countries, producer prices increased by 2.2% in the energy sector, while prices remained stable for durable consumer goods and for non-durable consumer goods, and prices decreased by 0.1% for capital goods and by 0.4% for intermediate goods. Producer prices excluding energy decreased by 0.2%.
Eurostat said that the biggest monthly increases were observed in Ireland (+3.7%), Finland (+2.4%) and Greece (+2.0%), while the largest declines were recorded in Romania (-1.3%), Slovenia (-0.7%) and Belgium (-0.6%).