Euro Area Annual Inflation Higher Than Expected At 2.7 Percent

[News_Editor]

Euro area annual inflation higher than expected at 2.7 percent 2012-04-18 19:51:59 GMT+7 (ICT) BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (BNO NEWS) -- The euro area's annual inflation in the 17-nation region increased slightly during the month of March, reaching 2.7 percent, the European Union (EU) said on Tuesday.Annual numbers for March remained unchanged compared with the same month last year, as it has been for four consecutive months. However, it is still higher than the 2.6 percent that had been previously forecast. Monthly inflation was 1.3 percent.According to Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, the annual inflation for the larger EU region was 2.9 percent in March, also unchanged when compared with February. A year earlier the rate was 3.1 percent, with March's monthly inflation at 1.1 percent.The lowest annual rates were observed in Sweden (1.1 percent), Greece (1.4 percent) and Bulgaria (1.7 percent), and the highest in Hungary (5.5 percent), Estonia (4.7%) and the Czech Republic (4.2 percent). Compared with February 2012, annual inflation fell in fourteen Member States, remained stable in four and rose in eight.The lowest 12-month averages up to March were registered in Sweden (1.3 percent), Ireland (1.4 percent) and Slovenia (2.1 percent), and the highest in Estonia (4.9 percent), Romania (4.6 percent) and Hungary (4.3 percent).

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