ECONOMY: At -0.5% Cyprus has lowest inflation rate in the EU

In October Cyprus had Europe’s lowest annual rate of inflation at -0.5% compared to 0.7% average in the euro area and 1.1% in the EU.

---

In Cyprus inflation remained stable to -0.5% in October and a year earlier the rate was a higher 1.9%.

The euro area annual inflation rate was 0.7% in October 2019, down from 0.8% in September, according to Eurostat.

A year earlier, the rate was 2.3%. EU annual inflation was 1.1% in October down from 1.2% in September.

In 2018, the rate was 2.3%. In Greece inflation turned negative at -0.3%, from 0.2% in September and 1.8% a year earlier.

The lowest annual rates were registered in Cyprus (-0.5%), Greece (-0.3%) and Portugal (-0.1%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Romania (3.2%), Hungary (3.0%) and Slovakia (2.9%).

Compared with September, annual inflation fell in 15 EU states, remained stable in eight and rose in five.

In October, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from services (+0.69 percentage points, pp), followed by food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.29 pp), non-energy industrial goods (+0.07 pp) and energy (-0.32 pp).