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Container port in Hamburg: high costs for electricity and gas are causing import prices to explode
Photo: Axel Heimken / DPA
The price increase for German imports is higher than it has been in 41 years.
This was announced by the Federal Statistical Office.
Because of the high oil and gas prices, import prices rose by 21.7 percent in October compared to the same month last year.
There was a similar leap in the 1980 oil crisis, which was a reaction to the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
In January of that year prices had risen by 21.8 percent.
Consumers are feeling the effects of price increases
Experts expect that the increased import costs will also affect consumer prices.
Rising oil and fuel prices had already caused the inflation rate to climb to 4.5 percent in October, the highest level in 28 years.
The Bundesbank assumes that almost six percent will be achieved in November.
The sharp rise in import prices is also primarily due to the rapidly increasing costs of energy: Importing them rose by 141.0 percent compared to October 2020. The price premium for natural gas was particularly high at 193.9 percent, and for crude oil there was an increase of 105.9 percent.
The import prices for imported hard coal rose by 213.2 percent.
The reason for the energy crisis is an imbalance between supply and demand: Because the economy has largely recovered since the beginning of the corona crisis and production has increased again, the demand for energy is increasing.
The offer doesn't keep up with that.
The CO₂ tax also makes energy imports more expensive.
In the meantime, Russia had also brought less gas to Germany than was demanded.
Export prices also rose sharply.
According to the statistics office, the corresponding index was 9.5 percent above the previous year's level in October - the largest increase since January 1975. In September and August, values of 8.1 and 7.2 percent were obtained.
jlk / dpa / Reuters
