Cyprus has 15th best performance in annual EU inflation rates

Inflation in Cyprus reached 3,7% in December 2007 according to data by the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat). In December 2007, the lowest annual rates were observed in the Netherlands (1.6%), Finland (1.9%) and the United Kingdom (2.1%), and the highest in Latvia (14.0%), Bulgaria (11.6%) and Estonia (9.7%). Compared with November 2007, annual inflation rose in seventeen Member States, remained stable in three and fell in six.
Cyprus ranked 15th followed by Greece (3,9%), Spain (4,3%), Luxembourg (4,3%), the Czech Republic (5,5%), Slovenia (5,7%), Romania (6,7%), Hungary (7,4%), Lithuania (8,2%), Estonia (9,7%), Bulgaria (11,6%) and Latvia (14%).
Euro area annual inflation was 3.1% in December 2007, unchanged compared with November, whereas EU annual inflation was 3.2% in December 2007, up from 3.1% in November.
The lowest 12-month averages up to December 2007 were registered in Malta (0.7%) and France, the Netherlands and Finland (1.6% each), and the highest in Latvia (10.1%), Hungary (7.9%) and Bulgaria (7.6%).
The main components with the highest annual rates in December 2007 were education (9.4%), transport (5.6%) and food (4.8%), while the lowest annual rates were observed for communications (-2.3%), recreation & culture (0.1%) and clothing (1.0%). Concerning the detailed sub-indices, fuels for transport (+0.49 percentage points), milk, cheese & eggs (+0.18) and heating oil (+0.17) had the largest upward impacts on the headline rate, while telecommunications (-0.16), garments (-0.12) and IT equipment (-0.08) had the biggest downward impacts.