Slightly fewer companies than in the previous month are planning to raise their prices in the near future. This is the result of a current survey by the Ifo Institute. However, this does not apply to the food sector. Customers there continue to expect price increases.
Slightly fewer companies than in the previous month are planning to raise their prices in the near future. This is the result of the current survey by the Ifo Institute. The ifo price expectations for the coming months fell to 51.5 points for the economy as a whole in October, after 53.8 points in September.
Trade and manufacturing in particular are planning fewer increases, while price expectations are rising among service providers and in the construction industry. “The wave of inflation hasn’t broken yet,” says Ifo economics chief Timo Wollmershäuser. “In particular, the high energy costs have not yet been fully passed on to consumers.”
Grocery retailers are planning further strong price increases. The price expectations there were 96.7 points, after 100.0 in the previous month. The majority of sellers of home textiles and carpets (94.6), stationery (92.5), DIY stores (85.6) and sellers of consumer electronics (85.4) want to raise their prices. Only in the trade in used cars are prices expected to fall slightly for the first time since March 2021. There, price expectations fell to minus 5.8 from plus 25.7 in the previous month.
The majority of companies in the manufacturing sector want to raise their prices. However, their share has decreased compared to the previous month. In the chemical industry, price expectations fell from 52.3 to 33.1 points, in the paper industry from 65.3 to 27.0 points.
Manufacturers of clothing (83.5), glassware and ceramics (72.1) and food and animal feed (70.6) have particularly high price expectations. The majority of service providers also want to raise their prices. Price expectations have risen to 47.0 points from 45.5 previously. The price expectations in gastronomy are very high (80.9).
The points in the ifo price expectations indicate what percentage of companies want to increase their prices on balance. The balance is obtained by subtracting the percentage of companies that want to lower their prices from the percentage of companies that want to raise their prices. If all companies surveyed intended to increase their prices, the balance would be plus 100 points. If everyone wanted to lower their prices, it would be minus 100. The balance has been seasonally adjusted. The ifo Institute does not ask about the amount of the planned price change.
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