German Producer Price Inflation Steady

Producer price inflation in Germany, which accelerated continually throughout the course of last year as a result of runaway energy and steel prices, stabilized at high levels in March, the federal statistics office Destatis said Tuesday. The German producer price index (PPI), which measures the price of goods at the factory gate and is a key yardstick of pipeline inflation, rose by 0.6 percent in March from the figure for February and was 4.2 percent higher than it had been in March 2004, Destatis said in a statement. The 12-month rate of change was the same as in February, the statisticians said.