MADRID, 17 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The euro zone’s annual inflation rate moderated last October to 2.9%, its lowest reading since July 2021, compared to the 4.3% price rise recorded in September, as confirmed the community statistical office, Eurostat.
In the European Union as a whole, the annual increase in the cost of living in October eased to 3.6% from 4.9% the previous month, the smallest increase in prices among the Twenty-seven since September 2021.
In this way, the rise in prices in October in the eurozone was well below that observed in other large economies, since in the United States the inflation rate moderated to 3.2% from 3.8% in September, while in the United Kingdom it fell to 4.6% from 5.7%.
In the case of the euro zone, the moderation in the rise in prices in the euro zone in the tenth month of the year was mainly due to the 11.2% drop in the cost of energy, one tenth more than initially estimated , compared to the 4.6% drop in September.
For its part, the increase in the price of unprocessed foods in October was 4.5% year-on-year, which represents 2.1 points less than the increase registered in September and the smallest increase since November 2021.
Likewise, in the case of services, prices rose by 4.6% year-on-year, one tenth less than in September, while non-energy industrial goods became six tenths cheaper since the previous month, with an increase of 3.5 %.
By excluding the impact of energy from the calculation, the year-on-year inflation rate in October stood at 4.9%, compared to 5.5% the previous month, while by also leaving out the impact of food prices, alcohol and tobacco, the underlying inflation rate remained at 4.2%, three tenths less.
Among the Twenty-seven, the lowest annual inflation rates were recorded in Belgium (-1.7%), the Netherlands (-1%) and Denmark (-0.4%), while the sharpest price increases corresponded to Hungary (9.6%), Czechia (9.5%) and Romania (8.3%).
The slowdown in the rise in the cost of living in the euro zone as a whole means that Spain, with an interannual inflation of 3.5% in October, began to have an unfavorable price differential of six tenths with respect to the euro zone, compared to the gap in favor of one percentage point from the previous month, when the rate in Spain was 3.3% compared to 4.3% in the euro zone.
