MADRID (Reuters) – Inflation in line with European standards slowed to 2.4 percent in Spain in August, its slowest pace in a year, thanks in part to lower fuel and food prices, preliminary data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) showed on Thursday.
The rate had stood at 2.9% in July. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected 2.5%.
Core inflation, which excludes volatile prices for unprocessed food and energy, rose 2.7% year-on-year, compared with 2.8% last month, according to the INE.
The slowdown in price increases is due to a base effect of fuel prices, which had risen sharply in August 2023 and, to a lesser extent, to the fall in food prices, the INE said.
Eurozone inflation is expected at 0900 GMT on Friday.
Investors expect the European Central Bank (ECB) to cut its key interest rates on September 12, the second after a cycle of monetary tightening that began in July 2022 to combat persistent inflation since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and the start of the war in Ukraine.
In Germany, the euro zone’s largest economy, inflation slowed in six states, preliminary data showed on Thursday, suggesting price dynamics may have slowed. Figures for the country as a whole are due at 1200 GMT.
However, ECB chief economist Philip Lane said this weekend that a restrictive monetary policy remained necessary.
(Report by Tiago Brandao and Belén Carreño, by Diana Mandiá, edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
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