Import Prices in Germany

Measures the change in the prices of goods imported into Germany. Published by Destatis, it is a leading indicator of imported inflationary pressures (energy, raw materials and intermediate goods) that eventually feed through to industrial and consumer prices.

Destatis collects the prices of a representative basket of imported goods each month and computes an index based on 2021=100. The monthly and year-on-year changes are derived from the index level.

Rising import prices tend to foreshadow higher producer and consumer inflation, and are highly sensitive to energy prices and the euro exchange rate. As the euro area's largest economy, Germany's reading is a reference for the ECB's inflation pipeline.

Highly volatile because of the energy and commodity components; its pass-through to the CPI comes with a lag and is muted, so a single month says little about underlying inflation.