Manufacturers slash prices
Updated on 10 July 2009
Manufacturers are slashing wholesale prices at the fastest rate for eight years, new figures show.
Factory gate prices dropped 0.2 per cent between May and June and are now 1.2 per cent lower than a year ago - the biggest year-on-year fall since December 2001, the Office for National Statistics said.
The price cuts follow a record 3 per cent fall in chemical prices and lower costs for manufactured products and scrap metal.
Oil is also now at less than half the record $147 a barrel seen last July and petrol prices have fallen 20 per cent year on year, the biggest decline since ONS records began in 1992.
Year-on-year input costs are 11 per cent below June last year, the biggest annual fall since 1997.
Howard Archer, of IHS Global Insight, said: "Producer output prices were far weaker than expected, indicating that manufacturers remain under intense pressure to price competitively."
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