The slowdown in inflation confirmed in the euro zone in March

(Boursier.com) — No bad surprises regarding European inflation in March. Eurostat confirms that the annual inflation rate in the euro zone stood at 2.4% last month, compared to 2.6% in February. The lowest annual rates were observed in Lithuania (0.4%), Finland (0.6%) and Denmark (0.8%) and the highest in Romania (6.7%), Croatia (4.9%), Estonia and Austria (4.1% each). In March the largest contributions to the annual inflation rate came from services (+1.76 percentage points, pp), followed by food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.53 pp), industrial goods excluding energy ( +0.30 pp) and energy (-0.16 pp), details Eurostat. Sequentially, prices increased by 0.8%. Annual ‘core’ inflation is confirmed at 2.9% compared to 3.1% in February.