In the euro zone as a whole, producer prices were down 0.3% on the month and 3.1% on the year, while those in Portugal were down 1.0% on the month, behind only Ireland (down 2.0%), Slovakia (down 1.3%) and Lithuania (down 1.1%).


Belgium, Malta and France were the only countries where producer prices were up on the month, at 0.5% for the first two countries and 0.1% for the latter.


According to Eurostat, the drop in euro-zone prices in September was driven by a 9.8% drop in the energy sector; in other industrial sectors, the drop was 0.6% overall.


In the EU as a whole, producer prices were down 0.3% in September from August and 3.8% on a year earlier.


Prices were down on the year in all EU member states, with Lithuania, Greece, the UK and the Netherlands showing the largest drops, at 10.5%, 8.8%, 8.4% and 8.0% respectively. In Portugal, they were down 4.1% on the year.