Canadian fuel costs boost prices.

Our high dollar offsets some of the inflationary effect of higher fuel prices. People who commute by car will surely begin to realize the value of car-pooling or public transit. Farmers are fortunate that grain prices are high but nonetheless increasing fuel prices will impact quite substantially on the price of their inputs and reduce their margins.

Canadian fuel costs boost prices

CanWest News Service


Friday, January 04, 2008


OTTAWA - While $100-a-barrel oil is a recent phenomenon, the rising cost for fuel was having an significant effect on the prices of manufactured goods and raw materials in November, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The agency's industrial product price index was up 0.6 per cent from the month earlier, "caused almost exclusively by surging prices for petroleum and coal products."

It called this "a marginal increase after six consecutive monthly declines."

Compared with a year earlier, this index was down 0.6 per cent. Declining prices for motor vehicles and other transport equipment, primary metal products, and pulp and paper offset higher energy costs.

Statistics Canada said the high Canadian dollar, compared to a year before, was less of a factor in dampening industrial-product prices in November than in October. Taking currency effects out of the equation, it said the index would have risen 0.9 per cent in November from October, and increased 3.6 per cent compared to a year earlier.

The raw materials price index was up 3.4 per cent between October and November, compared to a 0.7-per-cent jump a month before.

"In November, the RMPI was pushed up solely by the rise in crude oil prices, while prices for the other product groups continued their downward trend," Statistics Canada said.

Year-to-year, raw materials were up 15.7 per cent in November