Eurozone inflation is confirmed at 1%, the minimum in almost 3 years By Reuters

BRUSSELS, Sep 18 (Reuters) – Inflation in the euro zone remained stable in August at its lowest level in almost three years, the Statistics Office of the European Union said on Wednesday, confirming its previous estimates.

Eurostat said that inflation in the 19 countries of the euro zone stood at 1% in August, unchanged from July and in line with the expectations of a Reuters survey.

Inflation rose 0.1% month-on-month, below market expectations (0.2%), according to monthly data published by Eurostat.

The annual consumer price indexes for July and August are the lowest since November 2016, well below the ECB inflation target but close to 2%, despite years of unprecedented monetary stimuli with rate cuts and purchases of billions of euros in bonds.

Core inflation, which eliminates the volatility of unprocessed food and energy, and which the ECB takes into account in monetary policy decisions, was also confirmed at 1.1% in August, as in July.

The smallest figure, which also excludes alcohol and tobacco prices, important for many economists, remained unchanged at 0.9%.

Last week, the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, promised an indefinite monetary stimulus to reactivate a weakened economy in the euro zone and raise inflation.

Core inflation was unusually higher than general inflation in August because energy prices fell 0.6% compared to the previous year, in a new sign of a slowdown in the world economy.

The prices of the services sector, the most important in the euro zone, rose 1.3% in the year, accelerating since July, when they grew 1.2%.

(Information by Francesco Guarascio; edited by Philip Blenkinsop; translated by Laura Hijón in the editorial staff of Gdansk)

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