According to a report by ECO, until September, the operating costs of companies, measured by the producer price index, recorded an average increase of 20%. The last time there was such a sudden annual increase in producer prices was in 1983, when producer prices rose by 36%, according to OECD data.

The National Statistics Institute (INE) announced that the year-on-year rate of change in the Industrial Production Price Index (IPPI) increased by 19.6% in September (22.4% in the previous month), “maintaining a strong influence of the evolution of energy prices and intermediate goods”.

On the other hand, the average inflation rate, measured by the harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP), accumulates a rise of 7% compared to the average value of 2021. This means that this year companies spent, on average, a little more than one-third (35%) of the increase in the cost of their operations for the consumer.

Last year, the trend was the same: while the HICP increased by 1%, the IPPI grew by 9%. This means that, in the last two years, only 23% of the increase in production costs has passed into the pockets of consumers. These numbers also indicate that since 2020 companies are squeezing their margins to accommodate rising costs.