Industrial prices in the A.C. of the Basque Country registered a 0.9% increase in October 2004, according to EUSTAT data. With these data, the inter-annual rate for October, which covers the variation in industrial prices over the last twelve months, came to a 7.4% increase. In addition, the evolution of industrial prices over the first ten months of the year, in relation to last December, came to a similar increase of 7.5%.

A more detailed sectorial analysis shows that the most inflationary branches in October 2004 in relation to the previous month were “Oil refining" (8.2%), "Leather and footwear industry" (1.8%), "Chemicals industry" (1.1%) and “Metallurgy and metal articles" (0.8%). On the other hand, the following sectors underwent reductions in prices: “Electric energy, gas and water” (-2.7%), "Metal and non-metal minerals" (-1.2%), “Paper, publishing and graphic arts” (-0.4%) and "Electrical material" (-0.1%).

Over the inter-annual period, October 2004 in comparison to October 2003, the highest growth in prices occurred in the branches of "Oil refining" (28,9%), "Metallurgy and metal articles" (15.4%), "Metal and non-metal minerals" (10.3%) and "Food industry" (3.7%). By contrast, falls in prices corresponded to the sectors of "Leather and footwear industry" (-4.9%), " Paper, publishing and graphic arts " (-1.9%) and " Electric energy, gas and water " (-1.3%).

Following the new classification fo Goods by economic destination, the evolution of the prices of large sectorial groups followed an upward trend in all groups: Energy (4.7%), Intermediate Goods (0.6%), Consumer Goods (0.2%) which is subdivided in Durable Consumer Goods (0.3%) and Non-Durable Consumer Goods (0.1%), and finally, Capital Goods (0.1%).

The evolution of the prices of these large groups of goods reveals sharp differences over the inter-annual period. All of them present inter-annual increases: prices corresponding to Energy increased by 18.3%, Intermediate Goods rose by 9.9%, Capital Goods went up by 1.8% and the price of Consumer Goods increased by 1.8%, rising 1.3% for Durable Consumer Goods and 2.1% for Non-Durable Consumer Goods.