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Brussels (AFP) – The annual inflation rate in the eurozone recorded a decline in December for the second month in a row, reaching 9.2 percent, following it was 10.1 percent in November, thanks to the continued decline in energy prices in the world, according to what was announced by the European Statistics Agency ( Eurostat) Friday.
The increase in consumer prices fell below the symbolic 10% threshold for the first time since October, when it reached a record level (10.6%), following a continuous rise for a year and a half.
And the rate of decline is greater than the expectations of analysts of Bloomberg Financial Agency and the American FactSet Corporation, who expected that the inflation rate in December would reach 9.5 percent and 9.7 percent, respectively.
The slowdown in price rises only concerns the energy sector (electricity, gas, oil…).
Among the components of inflation in the eurozone, energy prices recorded the highest annual increase in December, but fell to 25.7 percent from 34.9 percent in November, according to Eurostat.
Food prices (including alcoholic beverages and tobacco) continue to rise, with an annual increase of 13.8 percent compared to 13.6 percent the previous month.
As for industrial products and services, whose prices are also rising, the rate of increase was 6.4 percent (+0.3 percent compared to November) and 4.4 percent (+0.2 percent), respectively.
Among the 19 countries in the eurozone (noting that Croatia became earlier this month the twentieth country that adopts the single currency), the lowest inflation rate was recorded in Spain in December with 5.6%, followed by Luxembourg (6.2%) and France (6%). ,7%).
Consumer prices increased by 9.6 percent in Germany and 12.3 percent in Italy.
The highest inflation rates were recorded in the Baltic countries, reaching 20.7 percent in Latvia, 20 percent in Lithuania and 17.5 percent in Estonia, according to Eurostat data.
© 2023 AFP
