By Ed Frankl
Producer prices in Canada ticked down in January for the fourth month in a row, as food and energy prices fell, while Canadian companies paid less for raw materials.
Statistics Canada's industrial product price index declined 0.1% in January from the month before. On a 12-month basis, the producer-price index fell 2.9%.
The month-on-month figure fell a little less than expectations of a 0.2% decline, according to a consensus of economists polled by FactSet.
The drop in prices was led in part by meat, fish and dairy prices, which tumbled 2.8%, Statistics Canada said. Prices for energy and petroleum products fell 0.7%, it added.
Excluding energy products, producer prices rose 0.1% on month, the data agency said Monday.
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, were up 1.2% from December. However, compared with a year earlier, prices for raw materials were down 6.4%.
Write to Ed Frankl at edward.frankl@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
02-19-24 0900ET
