Eurozone final inflation rises 0.6% MoM in April

Eurozone inflation held steady at a record high 7.4% in April, driven by soaring fuel and food costs, the EU’s statistics agency said today, lowering its estimate from a preliminary 7.5%.

Inflation has soared over the past year, first on post-Covid supply bottlenecks and latterly on knock-on effects from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

This has pushed up prices of everything from raw materials to finished industrial goods.

Price presses are now so broad that even underlying inflation, which filters out volatile food and fuel costs, is well above the European Central Bank’s 2% target, indicating that high price growth is at risk of getting entrenched.

Inflation excluding energy and food accelerated to 3.9% in April from 3.2% in March while an even narrower measure also filtering out alcohol and tobacco picked up to 3.5% from 3%, Eurostat said.