OREANDA-NEWS. Euro area annual inflation was -0.2% in April 2016, down from 0.0% in March. In April 2015 the rate was 0.0%. European Union annual inflation was also -0.2% in April 2016, down from 0.0% in March. A year earlier the rate was 0.0%. These figures come from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

In April 2016, negative annual rates were observed in seventeen Member States. The lowest annual rates were registered in Romania (-2.6%), Bulgaria (-2.5%) and Cyprus (-2.1%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Belgium (1.5%) and Sweden (1.0%). Compared with March 2016, annual inflation fell in thirteen Member States, remained stable in seven and rose in eight.

The largest upward impacts to euro area annual inflation came from restaurants & cafés (+0.13 percentage points), rents (+0.08 pp) and tobacco (+0.05 pp), while fuels for transport (-0.54 pp), heating oil (-0.22 pp) and gas (-0.13 pp) had the biggest downward impacts.