WASHINGTON, Dec 11 - The price of goods imported into the United States rose more than expected last month as the cost of a wide range of goods increased, a government report showed on Thursday. U.S. import prices rose 0.4 percent, their biggest gain since July, the Labor Department said. The cost of petroleum imports climbed 1.1 percent, while non-petroleum import prices were up 0.3 percent. Economists on Wall Street had expected a milder 0.2 percent rise in import prices. While price gains were broad-based last month, the cost of auto imports held steady. The price of imported consumer goods, excluding cars, rose 0.3 percent, the biggest gain since July 2000. A nearly two-year slide in the value of the dollar has helped push U.S. import prices up, which would tend to feed into higher inflation.
Over the last 12 months, non-petroleum import prices have risen 1.1 percent. That compares to a record drop of 5.4 percent in the 12-month period ended in January 2002. The department said export prices rose 0.5 percent last month, with non-agricultural exports up 0.2 percent.//