Eurozone inflation confirmed at 2.9% for July

(Sharecast News) - Inflation across the eurozone picked up as initially expected in July, according to final estimates from Eurostat released on Wednesday, with energy price growth accelerating after a brief slowdown the previous month. The annual change in the consumer price index across the single-currency region rose to 2.9% last month, up from 2.8% in June and in line with the flash reading released three weeks ago.

Energy was 10.3% more expensive than the year before, up from an 8.5% annual increase in June, which was a marked deceleration from the 10.8% inflation rate in both April and May as fuel supply disruption in the Middle East sparked a jump in crude prices.

That was enough to outweigh a slowdown in price growth elsewhere, with annual price increases of food, alcohol, tobacco and services all easing compared with the previous month.

In fact, the core inflation rate for the eurozone, which excludes the more volatile food, alcohol, tobacco and energy items, fell to 2.4% from 2.6%.