WASHINGTON (Reuters] – The U.S.’s import prices rose in January by almost 110%, owing to an increase in energy costs and tightening supply chains. It is this latest indicator that the high rate of inflation will likely continue for a time.

According to the Labor Department, import prices increased by 2.0% last month. This is the biggest increase in prices since April 2011 after a 0.4% decrease in December. After rising 10.2% last December, prices increased by 10.8% over the 12-month period to January

Reuters polled economists to forecast that import prices would rise 1.3%.

Following news Tuesday of a record eight-month increase in producer prices in January, the report was released. The annual inflation rate saw its highest increase in 40-years last month. Consumer prices rose also solidly.

The supply bottlenecks were showing signs of improvement towards the close of 2021 but this was stopped as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 caused a flurry of cases around the world.

The import fuel price increased by 9.3% after a decrease of 8.3% for December. Oil prices rose 9.5% last month, and imported food costs increased 3.6%

The import prices rose by 1.1% after excluding food and fuel. This was the core import price increase of 0.6%. These prices increased 6.2% year-on-year in January.

Also, the report showed that export prices increased 2.9% in January, after falling 1.6% in December. The prices for agricultural exports increased 3.0%. Prices for non-agricultural exports rose 2.9%

In January, export prices rose 15.1% year over year. This follows a December increase of 14.8%.