By Robb M. Stewart
OTTAWA--Producer prices in Canada slipped last month with a further decline in energy costs and Canadian companies paid less for raw materials.
Statistics Canada's industrial product price index fell 0.4% in November from the month before. On a 12-month basis, the producer-price index down 2.3%.
Excluding energy products, producer prices edged 0.1% lower on-month, the data agency said Tuesday.
The decline was driven by a second consecutive monthly fall in prices for energy and petroleum products, thanks mainly to lower costs for gasoline, Statistics Canada said. Prices also fell for chemicals and chemical products, and were down for prices of meat, fish and dairy products.
The industrial product price index measures the prices that manufacturers in Canada receive once their goods leave the plant. It doesn't reflect the final prices consumers pay for goods on store shelves.
Prices for raw materials, which track prices paid by manufacturers, dropped 4.2% from October. Compared with a year earlier, prices for raw materials fell 4.6% in November.
Prices for crude energy products posted the largest monthly decline since April 2020, with a sharp pullback in crude prices, the data agency said. Prices for live animals also declined, though prices increased for gold, silver and platinum group metals.
Economic activity in Canada has cooled sharply this year and the central bank expects the economy will remain weak for the next year as it adapts to higher interest rates after an aggressively campaign lifted the benchmark policy interest rate to a 22-year high.
Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-19-23 0848ET
