Euro area annual inflation up to 2.4%; EU stable at 2.8%
Eurostat stated (16-Mar-2011) Euro area annual inflation was 2.4% in Feb-2011, up from 2.3% in Jan-2011. A year earlier the rate was 0.8%. Monthly inflation was 0.4% in Feb-2011. EU annual inflation was 2.8% in Feb-2011, unchanged compared with Jan-2011. A year earlier the rate was 1.5%. Monthly inflation was 0.4% in Feb-2011. In Feb-2011, the lowest annual rates were observed in Ireland (0.9%), Sweden (1.2%) and France (1.8%), and the highest in Romania (7.6%), Estonia (5.5%) and Bulgaria (4.6%). Compared with Jan-2011, annual inflation rose in fifteen Member States, remained stable in three and fell in eight. The lowest 12-month averages up to Feb-2011 were registered in Ireland (-1.1%), Latvia (0.0%) and the Netherlands (1.2%), and the highest in Romania (6.5%), Greece (5.0%) and Hungary (4.4%).