(Original title: The alarm is still not lifted! The inflation rate in the euro zone fell back to the 6 era, but the core inflation hit a new high)
News from the Associated Press on March 31 (Editor Zhao Hao)The latest reported euro zone inflation rate fell sharply in March due to markedly lower energy prices, but core inflation rose to an all-time high.
On Friday (March 31), local time, preliminary statistics released by Eurostat showed that the Harmonized Consumer Price Index (HICP) of the 20 countries in the euro zone rose by 0.9% month-on-month in March, which was lower than the 1.1% expected by the market;
This resulted in a year-on-year increase of6.9%a decrease of 1.6 percentage points from 8.5% in February, and the slowdown also exceeded market expectations of 7.1%.
From a country-by-country perspective, six of the Eurozone member states have double-digit inflation rates, among which the three Baltic countries Latvia (+17.3%), Estonia (+15.6%) and Lithuania (+15.2%) are among the top three; Luxembourg Inflation rates in Spain and Spain recorded 3.0% and 3.1% respectively, the lowest in the euro zone.
Year-on-year inflation in the three largest euro zone economies – Germany – recorded 7.8 percent, France 6.6 percent and Italy 8.2 percent.
In terms of sub-item data, the price of food, alcohol and tobacco in the euro zone increased by 15.4% year-on-year in March, the price of non-energy industrial products was 6.6%, and the price of services increased by 5% year-on-year.energy pricesdecreased by 0.9% year-on-year,It was the main reason for the slowdown in headline inflation, which rose 13.7 percent in February.
However, core inflation, which strips out energy, food, alcohol and tobaccoRecorded 5.7%, a record high, an increase of 0.1 percentage points from February. According to media analysis, these figures do not give strong evidence that “inflation is slowing down”, and the European Central Bank may need to raise interest rates further this year.
Jack Allen-Reynolds, deputy director of euro area economics at Capital Economics, wrote in a note that policymakers at the central bank will not read too much into March’s headline inflation, and accordingly, they will focus more on the core of the record high. Inflation rate may continue to raise interest rates.
Yesterday, Schnabel, the executive member of the European Central Bank, said that the contribution of falling energy prices to the fall in inflation is declining rapidly, and the core inflation rate has proved to be sticky.
ECB Chief Economist Philip Lane also said on Wednesday that the ECB will need to raise rates further if near-term stress in the financial system is contained.
Since July last year, the European Central Bank has raised interest rates by 350 basis points. Among the three main interest rates, the refinancing rate is 3.50%, the marginal lending rate is 3.75%, and the deposit rate is 3.00%.