Eurozone inflation rebounded slightly in April, after five consecutive months of falls, as food prices stayed high, complicating the European Central Bank’s task of bringing down stubbornly elevated inflation ahead of its meeting this week.
The consumer price index increased 7.0% in April on year, from a 6.9% rise in March, preliminary data from the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat showed Tuesday, matching the 7.0% consensus forecast from economists in a poll by The Wall Street Journal.
While the headline rate of inflation rose, the core inflation rate–which strips out the more-volatile categories of food and energy–dipped slightly to 5.6% in April from 5.7% in March, in line with consensus forecasts. High core inflation is one of the key concerns of policymakers at the ECB.
The ECB is balancing taming inflation–which is well above its target of 2%–and the effects of high interest rates on the economy, with economists generally expecting the bank to raise its main interest rate on Thursday from its current 3.0%.
Driving the increase in inflation, food prices rose 13.6% on year in April, still high but easing from the 15.5% reported in March. Energy prices rebounded, registering inflation of 2.5% on year, after prices declined by 0.9% on year in March, an effect of the comparison on-year with the period shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, when energy prices soared. Energy inflation has eased in recent months.
Meanwhile, services inflation climbed slightly to 5.2% in April, from 5.1% in the prior month, while the measure for nonenergy industrial goods declined to 6.2% from 6.6%.
By Ed Frankl
