Euro area annual inflation up to 2.3%

Annual inflation in the Euro area1 was up to 2.3% in January 2011 compared to 2.2% in December 2010.

At the same time, the annual inflation rate in Cyprus in January 2011 rose to 3.0%, compared to 1.9 in December 2010, figures from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union said Monday.

Euro area1 annual inflation was 2.3% in January 2011, up from 2.2% in December 2010. A year earlier the rate was 0.9%. Monthly inflation was -0.7% in January 2011.

EU3 annual inflation was 2.7% in January 2011, unchanged compared to December 2010. A year earlier the rate was 1.7%. Monthly inflation was -0.4% in January 2011.

In January 2011, the lowest annual rates were observed in Ireland (0.2%) and Sweden (1.4%), and the highest in Romania (7.0%), Estonia (5.1%) and Greece (4.9%). However in December 2010 inflation in Greece was 5.2%.

Compared with December 2010, annual inflation rose in fifteen and fell in twelve Member States.

The main components with the highest annual rates in January 2011 were transport (5.1%), housing (4.5%) and alcohol & tobacco (3.7%), while the lowest annual rates were observed for clothing (-0.6%), communications (-0.2%) and recreation & culture (0.1%).
Concerning the detailed sub-indices, fuels for transport (+0.58 percentage points), heating oil (+0.19) and electricity (+0.11) had the largest upward impacts on the headline rate, while garments (-0.14), telecommunications (-0.08) and rents (-0.07) had the biggest downward impacts.

The main components with the highest monthly rates were housing (1.2%), transport (1.0%) and health (0.6%), while the lowest were clothing (-13.3%), recreation & culture (-2.1%), household equipment and hotels & restaurants (-0.5% each).