At that prices of products sold in the local market lowered over the year by 2.2%, of export products – by 0.7%, including products exported to the countries of the eurozone - by 0.2%, to the countries outside the eurozone - by 0.9%.
The major impact on changes in prices during the year was exerted by the decline in prices in electricity, gas and heat supply and air conditioning, production of computers, electronic and optical devices and in production of non-metallic minerals.
In turn prices in food production and in distribution of electric power marked up.
Alongside with fall in prices for the Latvian production the decline in export was characteristic in the past months. In October it was 3.5% lower than a year earlier. Over ten months of this year export shrank by 1.7% if compared to the same period of the last year.
In annual terms the decline in the amount of export in October was the most affected by the decline in export of machinery and electrical equipment (-17%), also of mineral products (-20%). Given that import has fallen for this group of products as well, it can be stated that decline in export in October was condition by shrinking of re-export.
However, the export indices were weighted down by export of such product groups as woods and wood products (-5%, including fall of export to Great Britain by 20%), as well as food products (3%), which predominantly are commodities of local origin.
The largest fall in the food segment was observed in rapeseed export – this is due to the fact that this year they began its export a month earlier. A positive contribution to the annual export growth was made by building materials, chemicals and textile.
The rise in commodity prices in the world and improvement of the external demand would help export next year to grow faster. However, populist sentiments in the world contribute to the increase of threat of protectionism, which, in its turn, would adversely affect Latvian export. To ensure the export growth it is important to enhance competitiveness, by tapping new markets and raising added value of export goods made in Latvia.
