EU annual inflation up to 1.5 pct in March

By Diyar Guldogan

ANKARA (AA) - European Union consumer prices showed a 1.5 percent rise in March compared with the same month last year, according to Eurostat on Wednesday.

Last month, the annual inflation rate went up by 0.1 percentage point from 1.4 percent in February while it was 1.6 percent in March, 2017.

Among the EU28, the lowest increases in consumer prices were observed in Greek Cypriot administration (0.4 percent), Greece (0.2 percent) and Denmark (0.4 percent) while highest rises were recorded in Romania (4.0 percent), Estonia (2.9 percent) and Slovakia and Lithuania (both 2.5 percent).

Compared with the previous month, consumer prices went up in 15 EU countries while there was a fall in six countries.

In March, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from services (0.67 percentage point), followed by food -- including alcohol and tobacco -- (0.41 percentage point), energy (0.20 percentage point) and non-energy industrial goods (0.07 percentage point), TurkStat said.

Over the last decade, the highest annual inflation rate in the EU was seen in July 2008, up 4.4 percent. The lowest was in January 2015, at minus 0.5 percent, when prices were in fact dropping.