Wiesbaden, Germany, Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- German wholesale prices fell in August for a third straight month, led by potatoes, bananas and green coffee, adding to evidence inflation in Europe's largest economy is falling. Prices for goods such as metals, energy and food declined 0.3 percent from July, the Federal Statistics Office said. Economists forecast a drop of 0.2 percent. Prices rose 1.5 percent from a year ago, the slowest pace since October 1999. ``The euro was clearly firmer compared with the previous month, that eased pressures from the import side,'' said Stefan Grothaus, an economist at WGZ Bank eG in Dusseldorf. ``The ECB can look at prices without worries.'' Consumer prices fell for the first time in 10 months in August as food and gasoline costs declined. Receding inflation makes it easier for the European Central Bank to reduce borrowing costs a third time this year as risks to growth increase. The euro started at $1.18 in January 1999. It fell to a low this year of 83.52 cents on July 6. The single currency traded as high as 92.79 cents today, the highest point this year.

Attacks in U.S.
The terrorist attacks against the U.S. may push the world into recession, analyst say. The ECB lowered its benchmark rate by a total of half a percentage point this year, to 4.25 percent, and investors see more cuts coming. The implied yield on the three-month Euribor interest rate futures contract maturing in December is 3.64 percent, 61 basis points below the ECB's main rate. The September contract yielded 4.13 percent. The ECB aims to keep inflation below 2 percent, a goal it has missed for the past 14 months. The inflation rate in the dozen- nation euro economy fell in July to 2.8 percent from 3.4 percent in May. At a press conference last week, ECB President Wim Duisenberg said the region's inflation rate is likely to fall below 2 percent in the first half of next year. Economists say wholesale price inflation is difficult to predict because of the large weighting of food in the index, for which prices fluctuate with the seasons. According to today's report, potatoes were 14.9 percent cheaper than in July, while the price of bananas declined 14.8 percent. Green coffee costs dropped 3.7 percent. Prices of apples rose 6.9 percent. Excluding oil products, wholesale prices increased 1.9 percent in the year. Wholesale distributors are concentrated in the western part of the country, which accounts for 96 percent of total sales.