BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Germany's import prices continued to decline in December, data released by Destatis showed on Friday.
Import prices fell 3.4 percent year-on-year, but slower than the 3.8 percent decline in November. Economists had forecast an annual fall of 3.1 percent.
The annual fall was largely driven by energy imports. Excluding energy, import prices dropped 0.7 percent annually.
Energy prices declined 23.9 percent annually but gained 7.1 percent on a monthly basis.
On a monthly basis, import price inflation rose slightly to 0.6 percent from 0.5 percent. However, this was slower than the expected growth of 0.9 percent.
On an annual average in 2020, the index of import prices was 4.3 percent lower than in 2019, when it was down 1.0 percent.
Further, data showed that export prices logged a steady annual decline of 0.6 percent in December. Month-on-month, export prices gained 0.1 percent after rising 0.4 percent in the previous month.
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