Hungary Producer Prices Rise Most in 10 Months on Oil Refining

Hungarian producer prices, which indicate future inflation trends, rose the most in 10 months in October as costs in oil refining soared.

Factory-gate prices rose 7 percent from a year earlier, matching the January pace as well as the median estimate of eight economists in a Bloomberg survey, the Budapest-based statistics office said today in an e-mail. Prices rose 1.9 percent from September.

The depreciation of the forint, the world’s worst- performing currency in the second half of this year, threatens the central bank’s 3 percent inflation target, policy makers said yesterday after raising the benchmark interest rate to 6.5 percent from 6 percent, the first increase since January.

The manufacturing of coke and refined petroleum products rose 38.7 percent in October from a year earlier after jumping 28.8 percent in September, the statistics office said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Zoltan Simon in Budapest at zsimon@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net