January 19, 1999 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Record decline in import prices
during 1998
Over the past year, import prices fell 6.1
percent, the largest annual decline recorded for the import price index since publication
of the series began in 1983. Much of the decline was attributed to falling oil prices:
petroleum prices fell 40.0 percent over the past year, bringing the oil import price index
level to its lowest level since 1983.
[Chart data—TXT]
Even among non-petroleum goods, the rate of price decline was slightly
higher in 1998 than in 1997. For the year, this index fell 3.1 percent, compared
with a 2.8 percent decrease in 1997.
Over the past 12 months, import prices from Latin America were down 9.9 percent, while
prices of imports from the Asian Newly Industrialized Countries fell 8.2 percent. Canadian import prices declined 3.5 percent in 1998. Despite gains in the last two months of the year, prices from Japan fell 3.0 percent over the past year. Prices for imports from the European Union were down 0.7 percent.
Estimates of import prices and other international price indexes are produced by the International Price Index program.
Additional information may be found in news release USDL-99-13, "U.S. Import and Export Price
Indexes—December 1998."
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Of interest
Spotlight on Statistics: National Hispanic Heritage Month
In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
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