Eurozone title, underlying inflation down, March without stable unemployment

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Headline inflation and underlying eurozone inflation slowed in March, prompting Monday's estimates, confirming the European Central Bank's decision to postpone the expected tightening of policy monetary.

The European Union's statistics office, Eurostat, has stated that consumer prices in the 19 euro-sharing countries increased by 1.4% in March, compared to a market forecast unchanged from the previous year. 1.5% in February.

Energy prices were the only major component in the index to accelerate in March, from 3.6% in February to 5.3% yoy. The growth of all other components has been slower.

If one excludes the volatile contributions in the energy and unprocessed food sectors – what the ECB calls the fundamental inflation and closely monitors the political decisions – the prices at the consumption have increased 1.0% year on year, from 1.2% in February.

The markets expected a reading unchanged.

An even more restrictive measure, also excluding alcohol and tobacco and closely watched by market economists, also slowed down from 1.0% in February to 0.8%, compared with an average forecast of 0%. , 9% in a poll of Reuters badysts.

The ECB wants to keep global inflation below 2% but close to 2% in the medium term. It reversed the trend in March to postpone its intention to "normalize" its loose monetary policy.

Instead, he decided to provide even more liquidity to the banks and postpone an increase in rates until next year.

Sabine Lautenschlaeger, a member of the ECB's governing board, said Monday in a newspaper interview that inflation in the eurozone would take longer to grow, the uncertainty growth and that the ECB underestimated the slowdown in the labor market.

Eurostat data show separately that the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 7.8% of the active population in February compared with January, but that the number of unemployed fell to 12.730 million from 12.807 million in January. .