Eurozone Producer Price Inflation Accelerates

(RTTNews) - Eurozone producer price inflation accelerated notably in February on surging energy prices, Eurostat reported Thursday.

Producer prices logged an annual growth of 3.0 percent in February, following January's 1.7 percent increase.

Excluding energy, producer price inflation rose only marginally to 1.4 percent from 1.3 percent in January.

Within main industrial grouping, energy showed the biggest annual increase of 7.4 percent in February, which was faster than the 3.4 percent rise in January. Cost of intermediate goods prices grew at a faster pace of 0.9 percent compared to 0.5 percent rise in the previous month.

Meanwhile, growth in capital goods slowed to 1.6 percent from 1.7 percent. Likewise, the increase in non-durable consumer goods prices weakened to 1.7 percent from 1.8 percent. Durable consumer goods prices rose 0.9 percent, after a 1.5 percent gain.

On a monthly basis, producer prices grew only 0.2 percent in February. Prices were expected to grow 0.3 percent after rising 0.7 percent in February.

Producer prices in the EU27 rose 0.3 percent month-on-month in February, taking the annual growth to 3.1 percent.