Investing.com - Inflation in the euro zone accelerated in October, underlining the European Central Bank’s case for winding up its asset purchase program at the end of this year.
The bloc’s statistics agency Eurostat said its consumer price index rose at an annual rate of 2.2% in October, accelerating from 2.1% in September. Analysts had expected a reading of 2.1%.
Core inflation, which strips out volatile items such as energy and food, picked up to 1.1% yea-on-year from 0.9% in the previous month, above expectations for a gain of 1.0%.
Last week the ECB made no changes to its monetary policy, confirming that its €15 billion ($17.1 billion) in monthly asset purchases was still on track until the end of December, but maintained wording suggesting that it only “anticipates” the program to end at that time, leaving itself wiggle room in case of any surprises.
ECB President Mario Draghi emphasized that despite global uncertainties surrounding the U.S.-China trade dispute, Brexit negotiations between the UK and the European Union or Italy’s 2019 budget, he was confident that inflation was on track to reach the ECB’s target of below, but close to, 2%.
In any case, the ECB president made clear that policymakers had not discussed future steps, promising to do so at the next meeting (Dec. 13) when they have updated economic projections.
At the same time, another report showed that the unemployment rate in the euro zone remained steady at 8.1% in September.