Investing.com - Inflation in the euro zone rose in March after three months of declines, according to a flash estimate released on Wednesday.
The bloc’s statistics agency Eurostat said its consumer price index rose by 1.4% in March from the same month a year earlier, up from 1.1% in February and in line with forecasts.
Core inflation, which strips out volatile items such as energy and food, rose by an annual rate of 1.0%, unchanged from the previous month. Economists had expected core inflation to tick up to 1.1%.
Both measures are below the European Central Bank’s inflation target of close to but just under 2%.
Sluggish price growth highlights the challenges faced by the ECB as it debates how quickly to wind up its bond purchasing stimulus program after years of accommodative monetary policy.
The ECB dropped a pledge to expand its monetary easing program at its March meeting, indicating that stimulus in the region could come to an end in the near future.
The solid economic recovery in the euro zone supported the decision to remove the easing bias, the ECB said.
But stronger growth is not translating into a sustained increase in inflation, underlining the ECB’s caution in removing stimulus.
At the same time, a separate report by Eurostat showed that the unemployment rate in the euro area ticked down to a new nine-year low of 8.5% in February from 8.6% in January.