NEW FIGURES PUBLISHED TODAY by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that manufacturing prices fell in July, though they are up by 0.9% on last year.

The prices are slowly sliding, however, with the same products having increased in price by 1.1% in May. The year-on-year increased was 2% at that point – meaning that the prices are, in real terms, falling fairly dramatically in such a short window.

The price index for export sales decreased by 0.7% as manufacturers try to cut costs in order to win more overseas customers.

The slight decrease comes despite the price of petroleum fuels being up by 24.1% on June 2009, while energy costs rose by 7.3% and electronic products cost 11.2% in the same period.

The price of new homes has begun to increase again, however, with costs up by 0.2% in the last month – though they had fallen by 1.2% in the previous month.

Overall the cost of manufacturing goods is 2% lower than it was in November 2008 – which was the same it had been in 2005 – while the housing index stands at 109.7, based on 2005 prices.

It had most recently peaked at 115.9 in August of 2008, just as the credit crunch was beginning to take effect on these shores.