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Offshore platforms off the California coast: crude oil is becoming particularly expensive
Photo: Leonard Ortiz / dpa
German import prices rose more sharply in May than they have been in almost 40 years.
The import prices rose by 11.8 percent within a year, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on Monday.
The last time there was a higher increase was in October 1981 in the second oil price crisis (plus 13.6 percent).
Experts expect that, despite the price pressure, the inflation that is noticeable to consumers will rise significantly less.
The sharp rise in imported inflation is primarily due to the development of energy: it was about twice as expensive as in May 2020.
“This increase is due to the extremely low price level in the same month in the previous year,” said the statisticians.
At that time, demand had reached its low point due to the Corona recession, with a strong supply overhang at the same time.
Crude oil rose particularly strongly at 135 percent, as did mineral oil products at a good 71 percent and natural gas at almost 100 percent.
Electric power was almost 200 percent more expensive to import.
Without taking energy into account, import prices rose by just 6.0 percent in May.
Certain preliminary products are becoming scarce
The rise in energy prices is likely to level off soon due to the development in the Corona year 2020, said Dekabank expert Kristian Tödtmann. In the case of intermediate goods, on the other hand, it is likely to take longer for prices to normalize again. »You can hardly get hold of certain intermediate products.« However, given their market share, companies would only pass the higher prices on to consumers with great caution. Therefore, consumer goods hardly rose in price, said analyst Tödtmann. "Prices at the consumer level are much more sluggish and do not fluctuate as much as at the producer level."
Intermediate goods rose in price by 15.4 percent in May, well above average. Iron ores (plus 83.6 percent), copper (plus 65.1 percent), plastics (plus 42.9 percent) as well as pig iron, steel and ferro-alloys (plus 32.4 percent) cost significantly more. "The main reason for the sharp rise in iron ore prices is likely to be the continued strong global demand," explained the statisticians. There are already delivery bottlenecks for many materials in construction.
The prices for imported capital goods fell against the trend by 0.6 percent.
While storage units and other data storage devices (minus 10.9 percent) were introduced more cheaply, notebooks (plus 1.8 percent) as well as vehicles and motor vehicle engines (plus 0.8 percent) were somewhat more expensive than in May 2020. The prices for agricultural goods moved 7.5 percent on.
Higher energy prices drove German inflation to 2.5 percent in May, its highest level since 2011.
Experts believe that consumer prices could rise by three to four percent from July due to special effects from the temporary VAT increase in 2020.
The price pressure should then ease again next year.
dab / Reuters