Estonia Producer Prices January 2008

According to data released by the Estonia Statistics Office in January 2008 the percentage change in the producer price index was 1.3% compared to December 2007 and 8.3% compared to January 2007. In January compared to December 2007 the producer price index was mainly influenced by the increase in prices in energy and in the manufacture of food and beverages.

In January 2008 the percentage change in the export price index was 1.1% compared to December 2007 and 6.7% compared to January 2007, while the percentage change in the import price index was 0.5% compared to December 2007 and 5.6% compared to January 2007.



For those of you who are interested to see a chart which I would term having "bottomed out" - or in this case "topped out" - the above chart should serve the purpose, since a lot of the impetus has now gone out of the wave of increase in producer prices. But please remember they are still increasing, it is only that the rate of increase is slowing, but obviously with each month that passes and producer prices continue to rise (ie remains above zero price growth), the more pressure there is on the competitivity of Estonian exports and logically the more pressure there is on the kroon peg. The rate of increase in export prices, as can be seen from the chart below, is now slowing even more quickly, but still, unfortunately a lot of the damage has already been done.