Eurozone inflation holds steady at 2.1%

(Sharecast News) - Eurozone inflation was unchanged in November, official data showed on Wednesday, narrowly beating forecasts for a modestly higher print. According to Eurostat, the statistical office for the European Union, the annual inflation rate was 2.1%. Consensus had been for 2.2%.

Across the wider bloc, inflation was 2.4%, down from 2.5% in October.

The main contributors to Eurozone inflation in November were services - up 1.58 percentage points - food, alcohol and tobacco, and non-energy industrial goods.

Among individual countries, the harmonised index of consumer prices was 2.6% in Germany, the region's biggest economy, up on October's rate of 2.3%. In Spain HICP was unchanged at 3.2%. It was also unchanged in France, at 0.8%, but eased to 1.1% in Italy, from 1.3%.

All EU members use the same methodology to calculate HICP.

Core inflation, which strips out the more volatile elements of energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, was unchanged at 2.4% across the Eurozone, in line with expectations.

Core inflation is the European Central Bank's preferred measure.