Mubasher: The costs of the US import rose in October, helped mainly by a surge in gas prices, data released on Thursday showed.

The price index for the country’s imports rose 0.5% in October, after gaining 0.2% in September, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported.

This marked the largest monthly gain since last May when import prices rose 0.9%.

Natural gas prices climbed 24.6% in October, marking the largest gain since November 2017 when prices surged 25.7%.

In addition, prices for US imports rose 3.5% year-on-year in October.

Omitting fuel import prices, the importing costs nudged up 0.2% last October, on the back of rising prices for food and beverage, more than offsetting declining prices for capital goods, consumer goods and non-fuel industrial supplies and materials.

US export costs edged up 0.4% in October after stabilising in the prior month, as higher prices for non-farm exported products more than offset the impact of higher agricultural export prices.

By 2:03 pm GMT, the EUR/USD pair inched down 0.07% to $1.1302.