As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the selling prices in wholesale trade in January 2021 remained unchanged in comparison with the corresponding month of the preceding year. In December 2020 and in November 2020 the annual rates of change had been -1.2% and -1.7%, respectively.

From December 2020 to January 2021 the index rose by 2.1%. This was the highest increase of a monthly rate of change since March 1974 (+3.0%).

There were particularly strong price increases compared to the previous year in the wholesale trade of waste materials and residual materials (+34.2 %), ores, metals and semi-finished metal products (+8.9 %) as well as cereals, raw tobacco, seeds and animal feed (+9.5 %).

On the other hand, prices at wholesale level were lower than in January 2020, particularly for live animals (-29.0%), petroleum products (-9.6%), meat and meat products (-5.9 %) and data processing equipment, peripheral equipment and software (-4.8 %).

Compared with December 2020, the price trend in the wholesale trade of petroleum products had the highest impact on the extraordinary rate of change in the overall index, with an increase of 10.8% due to the high proportion of weighing. Prices also rose sharply for waste materials and residual materials (+14.3 %) as well as for ores, metals and semi-finished metal products (+5.9 %).