Eurozone inflation moves lower in January, despite jump in food prices

Eurozone inflation cooled a tad less than expected at the start of 2024.

According to Eurostat, in seasonally adjusted terms the harmonised Consumer Price Index fell at a month-on-month pace of 0.4%.

That served to push the annual rate of increase in headline CPI down by one tenth of a percentage point from the month before to reach 2.8% - just as expected by economists.

At the core level however, which excludes alcohol, energy, food and tobacco, CPI dipped from 3.4% to 3.3%, against forecasts for a decline to 3.2%.

The monthly rate of change in core CPI was -0.9%.

Non-energy industrial goods prices exerted the bulk of the downward pressure on prices, falling by 2.4% on the month, whilst those for services dipped by 0.1%.

Offsetting those drops however, prices of food, alcohol and tobacco shot 1.0% higher and those of energy by 0.9%.

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