Industrial prices rose by 41.8% in August when compared with August 2021, and they grew by 2.8% from July to August, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE) report released on Monday. This annual uptick in August marks a notable acceleration, almost 1.5 percentage points higher than July, and it continues a trend of positive price momentum in the industrial sector for twenty straight months. These numbers highlight a persistent expansion in the industrial price chain, driven by a string of higher readings that suggest ongoing inflationary pressure within the production and manufacturing landscape.
Over the four months leading up to August, the pace of industrial price growth regained momentum after a more moderate month-to-month pattern. While August did not reach the peak seen in March, when prices jumped by about 47%, the August increase nonetheless underscores continued strength in price levels across many industrial segments. This sustained rise reflects a combination of factors, including shifts in supply chain costs and energy-related dynamics that are rippling through production costs and final prices for goods sold to consumers.
The primary driver behind the August surge in industrial prices was energy. Energy costs contributed roughly six percentage points to the annual change, driving the year-over-year spike to 107.4%. In addition, non-durable consumer goods saw their annual rate climb by just over one percentage point, a movement linked to higher gas production costs that feed into domestic energy use and manufacturing. Costs associated with the production of oil and fats, as well as meat products, also rose, pushing certain consumer items higher and affecting the overall price trajectory for industrial goods.
Conversely, some categories contracted or cooled. Prices for intermediate goods fell by more than 1.5 percentage points, landing at around 20% year over year. This retreat reflects at least temporary relief from the higher costs seen in the chemical manufacturing sector, where cheaper inputs and adjustments in production schedules helped temper overall price growth for these intermediate inputs in August.
When excluding energy, INE notes that industrial prices in August still posted a year-over-year increase of 14.4%. This core measure was two-tenths of a percentage point lower than July and stood roughly 27.5 points below the overall inflation rate across the economy. The distinction between energy-excluded prices and the total industrial index highlights how much energy costs are driving the broader inflation picture in the industrial sector, while underlying prices for non-energy inputs show a more moderate, though still positive, growth path. [INE] This separation helps analysts gauge the underlying pricing pressures independent of energy shocks and provides a clearer sense of the inflation dynamics within production and manufacturing activities.