ECONOMY: Cyprus registers the lowest annual inflation in the EU

Cyprus registered the lowest annual inflation rate in the EU for May with 0.2%, according to Eurostat.

Euro area annual inflation rate was 1.2% in May 2019, down from 1.7% in April and 2.0% in April 2018, while inflation dropped to 0.2% in Cyprus (form 1.2% in April 2019 and 1.0% in May 2018).

In Greece, inflation dropped to 0.6% in May, from 1.1% in April 2019 and 0.8% in May 2018.

Meanwhile EU annual inflation was 1.6% in May, down from 1.9% in April. A year earlier, the rate was 2.0%.

The lowest annual rates were registered in Cyprus (0.2%), Portugal (0.3%) and Greece (0.6%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Romania (4.4%), Hungary (4.0%) and Latvia (3.5%).

Compared with April, annual inflation fell in 16 Member States, remained stable in five and rose in six.

In May, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from services (+0.47 percentage points, pp), followed by energy (+0.38 pp), food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.29 pp) and non-energy industrial goods (+0.08 pp).