In February, the inflation rate was still 10.9%. Above all, falling fuel prices are having a dampening effect on inflation.
Inflation is expected to have dipped well below the ten percent mark again in March. The inflation rate is likely to have dropped to 9.1% and therefore to the lowest since June 2022, according to calculations by Statistics Austria as part of a flash estimate. Inflation was 10.9% in February and 11.2% in January.
“The main contributors were fuel and heating oil, whose prices rose massively at the start of the war in Ukraine, but have since dropped again and are now having a dampening effect on inflation on a year-on-year comparison. is weakening,” Statistics Austria Director General Tobias Thomas said on Friday, according to a broadcast.
Inflation remains well above ECB target
The European Central Bank (ECB) points to an inflation rate of two percent as the ideal value for the economy in the euro zone. At its last meeting, in mid-March, the ECB again sharply increased interest rates. It was the sixth consecutive rise in interest rates since the inversion of interest rates in July 2022. The deposit rate, which marks the trend in financial markets and which financial institutions receive from the central bank for parking excesses, rose to 3. 00 percent. The basic interest rate rose to 3.50%.
(APA)