Ireland had the third-lowest annual inflation rate in the eurozone at 0.3% in January 2018, according to new figures by the European Union.
The EU’s statistics arm Eurostat revealed that the annual inflation rate for the eurozone was 1.3% during that time, lower than the 1.6% inflation rate for the bloc overall.
The lowest annual rates were registered in Cyprus (-1.5%), Greece (0.2%) and Ireland (0.3%), while the highest were recorded in Lithuania and Estonia (both 3.6%) and Romania (3.4%).
Compared with December 2017, annual inflation fell in 21 member states, remained stable in one and rose in six. In Ireland, it dropped by 0.7% during that time, keeping in line with the EU average (-0.7%) and above the eurozone average (-0.9%).
Contributions
The highest contribution to the annual eurozone inflation rate came from services (+0.56 percentage point), followed by food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.39 pp), energy (+0.22 pp) and non-energy industrial goods (+0.15 pp), according to Eurostat.
The UK’s annual inflation rate was on the higher end of the spectrum, at 3.0%, albeit falling 0.5% in its monthly rate.
The only negative annual inflation rate besides Cyprus was Iceland (-0.7%), which isn’t a member state but is under EU law via the EEA and the Schengen Agreement.
The eurozone is the monetary union of 19 of the 28 European Union member states, which have adopted the euro as their common currency.
© 2018 - Checkout Magazine by Kevin Duggan
