BERLIN
\nThe price of goods produced by German companies has fallen at the fastest annual rate since records began in 1949, pointing to further falls in inflation in Europe\u2019s largest economy.
\nThe federal statistical agency said producer prices of German industrial products fell 14.7 per cent in the year to September, dragged lower by falling wholesale energy prices.
\nExcluding energy, German producer prices rose 0.8 per cent from a year earlier. Producer prices are seen by economists as an indicator of future prices paid by shoppers, which are used to calculate consumer price inflation.
\nIn a further sign of weakness in the German economy, exports of goods outside the EU declined 8.7 per cent in the year to September, with double-digit falls in shipments to both the US and China, Germany\u2019s two main trading partners.
\nGermany\u2019s economy has contracted or stagnated for the past nine months and the IMF this month predicted it would be the worst-performing major economy this year, with output contracting 0.5 per cent before returning to tepid growth of 0.9 per cent next year.
\nOliver Rakau, an economist at consultants Oxford Economics, said falling exports were \u201canother reason to expect a fairly hefty quarterly drop in German gross domestic product in the third quarter\u201d, predicting output would decline 0.4 per cent from the previous quarter.
\nOther recent German economic data has also been weak, including August\u2019s 0.2 per cent decline in industrial production from July and a 1.2 per cent decline in retail sales in the same period.
\nRakau said the recent \u201cweakness\u201d pointed to \u201canother contraction\u201d in fourth-quarter GDP.
\nSlowing economic activity is contributing to a cooling of price pressures, as shown by the 0.2 month-on-month decline in German producer prices.
\nAnna Titareva, an economist at Swiss bank UBS, forecast that German consumer price inflation would continue falling rapidly, dropping from 4.3 per cent in September to 3.3 per cent in October.
\nThis would contribute to a similarly \u201cbig drop\u201d in eurozone inflation from 4.3 per cent in September to 3 per cent in October, its lowest level since August 2021.
\nThe German figures are due out on October 30, with the numbers for the single currency area coming the following day.
\nExpectations of further falls in inflation would help the European Central Bank keep interest rates unchanged when it meets next Thursday, she said.
\nThe conflict between Israel and Hamas has raised fears of wider tensions in the Middle East and pushed up oil and gas prices in recent weeks, which economists worry could keep inflation stubbornly high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BERLIN The price of goods produced by German companies has fallen at the fastest annual rate since records began in 1949, pointing to further falls in inflation in Europe\u2019s largest economy. The federal statistical agency said producer prices of German industrial products fell 14.7 per cent in the year to September, dragged lower by falling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-363155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"\n