In December, inflation within the Eurozone reached its highest point in five months, largely driven by increased costs in the services sector, as indicated by preliminary figures released by Eurostat on Tuesday. The harmonized index of consumer prices rose by 2.4 percent compared to the previous year, building on November's 2.2 percent increase, and aligning with economists' predictions.
When excluding the costs of energy, food, alcohol, and tobacco, the core inflation rate remained steady at 2.7 percent in December, which also met expectations. On a month-to-month comparison, the HICP increased by 0.4 percent in December. Among the main components of the HICP, services exhibited the highest annual growth rate at 4.0 percent, slightly up from a 3.9 percent increase in November.
The prices of food, alcohol, and tobacco maintained a stable growth of 2.7 percent. In contrast, energy prices saw a slight rise of 0.1 percent, recovering from a 2.0 percent decline the previous month. Meanwhile, the rise in prices for non-energy industrial goods slightly eased to 0.5 percent, down from 0.6 percent in November.
The material has been provided by InstaForex Company -
www.instaforex.com
