Eurozone inflation holds steady at 0.9%
By Abigail Townsend
Date: Tuesday 02 Mar 2021
(Sharecast News) - Inflation in the eurozone was unchanged in February, official data showed on Tuesday, in line with expectations.
According to the flash estimate from Eurostat, the European Commission's statistics office, eurozone inflation is expected to be 0.9% in February, unchanged on January's year-on-year rate.
Within that, food, alcohol and tobacco rose by 1.4% compared to 1.5% in January, while services was 1.2% against 1.4% a month earlier. Non-energy industrial goods grew by 1.0% compared to 1.5% in January.
Energy prices fell by 1.7%, a significant change on January's 4.2% decline.
The core rate, which strips out the more volatile components of energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, eased to 1.1% from 1.4%.
Within individual countries, inflation was unchanged at 1.6% in Germany, the eurozone's biggest economy; down 0.1% in Spain compared to January's 0.4% rise; and 1.0% in Italy, up from January's rate of 0.7%. In France, inflation was estimated to be 0.7%, compared to 0.8% a month earlier.
Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said: "These numbers represent the calm before the storm on a headline level The core probably will dip a bit further in the near-term, but factoring in ongoing imputation in services, and mounting supply-side pressures in goods inflation, we think a trend of 1.0% is a fair baseline through spring.
"After that, we will have to discuss the idea of a pent-up demand-driven boost in the second half, as the economy hopefully reopens more fully. Assuming this is true, this means that the headline will fully reflect the coming incomes in energy inflation as based effects in oil prices shift."
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