Rising costs rock German factories

GERMAN factories have been battered by their biggest price shock since records began as russia’s chokehold on energy supplies caused bills to rocket.

Prices for industrial products were 45.8pc higher in august than a year earlier, according to Germany’s Federal Statistical Office.

This was the biggest jump since the data began in 1949 and the country was divided between east and West. The figures will pile pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-way coalition, which is trying to protect families from soaring gas bills.

Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank, recently warned of ‘mounting signs of a recession’.

The FSO said energy prices have jumped 139pc over the past year, and between July and august they shot up by 20.4pc as russia first reduced supplies of gas through the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline before turning it off entirely.