According to Statistics Canada, prices for products sold by Canadian manufacturers, as measured by the Industrial Product Price Index (IPPI), rose 0.2 percent in October, mostly driven by higher prices for meat, fish, and dairy products. Prices for raw materials purchased by Canadian manufacturers, as measured by the Raw Materials Price Index (RMPI), fell 2.4 percent, mainly as a result of lower prices for crude energy products.
The IPPI rose 0.2 percent in October, following an identical increase in September. Of the 21 major commodity groups, 10 were up, 6 were down and 5 were unchanged. The IPPI excluding energy and petroleum products also rose 0.2 percent.
Year over year, the IPPI rose 5.3 percent in October, following a 6.3 percent increase in September. Of the 21 major commodity groups, only primary non-ferrous metal products were down compared with October 2017.
The RMPI (-2.4 percent) was down for a third consecutive month in October, after falling 1.0 percent in September. Of the six major commodity groups, three were down and three were up.
The decrease in the RMPI in October was mostly due to lower prices for crude energy products (-7.0 percent), particularly conventional crude oil (-7.3 percent), which posted its largest decrease since June 2017 (-9.6 percent). The RMPI excluding crude energy products rose 2.1 percent.
Prices for metal ores, concentrates and scrap (+1.5 percent) also rose in October, following a 1.8 percent decrease the previous month. This was the first gain in four months for this commodity group.
Compared with the same month a year earlier, the RMPI rose 7.7 percent in October, following a 14.5 percent increase in September. The growth in the RMPI was slightly offset by prices for metal ores, concentrates and scrap (-1.6 percent), which saw their first year-over-year decline since June 2016.