December 13, 2001 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Import prices down again in November

The U.S. Import Price Index decreased 1.6 percent in November. The decline followed a 2.4-percent decrease in October and reflected continuing drops in both petroleum and nonpetroleum prices.

[Chart data—TXT]

The sharp declines for overall imports in the past two months were led by falling prices for petroleum and petroleum products. This index fell 10.8 percent in November, after falling 15.9 percent in October. The index for nonpetroleum import prices also fell in October and November, down 0.6 percent in each month.

The decline for imported goods for the 12 months ended in November was 8.9 percent. Over the past 12 months, petroleum prices fell 40.8 percent. The nonpetroleum index has decreased in 10 consecutive months and was down 3.6 percent for the year.

These data are a product of the BLS International Price program. Learn more in "U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes - November 2001," news release USDL 01-465. Note: import price data are subject to revision in each of the three months after original publication.