The eurozone’s inflation rate sank lower in August to 0.3 per cent on an annual basis, in line with expectations and keeping pressure on the European Central Bank to do more to ease monetary policy, the FT’s Alice Ross writes.
As reported by FastFT, the flash reading of 0.3 per cent for the eurozone consumer price index in August from Eurostat marks a fresh five-year low and remains well below the ECB’s inflation target of 2 per cent.
Inflation in the single currency bloc in July was 0.4 per cent on an annualised basis and 0.5 per cent in June.
Last week, ECB president Mario Draghi said that the central bank would use “all the available instruments” to combat low inflation in the eurozone, noting that medium-term expectations for price increases had also gone down.
The ECB said this week it had appointed Blackrock Solutions to advise it on a possible bond-buying scheme to help revive credit availability in the single currency bloc by investing in asset-backed schemes. The central bank has yet to decide whether it will go ahead with such a measure.
