Industrial producer prices fell 0,4% in April. This is the estimate on industry made known by Istat which underlines however that, on an annual basis, there is an increase of 1,3%.
The National Institute of Statistics "detects a cyclical sign of decline after a series of positive or stationary changes since July 2017. On an annual basis, the positive trend is confirmed, even if it has decelerated since December 2017".
Going into detail, on the domestic market, producer prices fell by 0,7% on March, while on an annual basis the increase is 1,4%. Net of the energy sector, the economic trend is stationary, while the increase on an annual basis is reduced to a limited extent (+1,1%). “The trend increase – explains Istat – is determined almost exclusively by energy and intermediate goods, while on the foreign market it derives from intermediate and capital goods for the euro area and from energy and intermediate goods for the non-euro area. EUR".
On the other hand, on the foreign market, the economic trend recorded a limited increase (+0,1%), a synthesis of a slight decrease (-0,1%) for the euro area and an increase (+0,3%) for that not euros. On an annual basis there was a 1% increase balanced between the two areas (+1,1% for the euro area and +1% for the non-euro area).
Furthermore, in the months of February, March and April 2018, Istat estimates an increase in production prices of 0,6% on the previous quarter, while the growth trend reaches 1,6%. In this case it is above all the domestic market that sustains growth (+0,7% cyclical growth and +1,8% yoy) while the foreign market stands at +0,4% yoy and +1,1% yoy.
At the sectoral level, in April the most important increases in the manufacturing sector concerned the production of refined petroleum products for the domestic market and for the foreign market in the non-euro area (respectively +4,7% and +7,4%) and the metallurgy and manufacturing of metal products (excluding machinery and plants) for the euro area foreign market +3,7%. Pharmaceutical products on the euro area and non-euro area foreign markets were down (-1,5% and -1,2% respectively). On the domestic market, decreases were noted for electrical equipment (-0,4%) and means of transport (-0,1%).
