A jump in gas and electricity prices as well as food spurred a rebound in euro zone annual inflation in February, offsetting falls in the prices of motor fuel, heating oil and consumer electronics, data showed.
The European Union statistics office, Eurostat, said prices in the 16 countries using the euro rose an expected 0.4 per cent month-on-month for a 1.2 per cent year-on-year gain, up from 1.1 per cent in January - confirming its earlier annual estimate.
What the European Central Bank calls core inflation - excluding volatile unprocessed food and energy prices - was 0.4 per cent month-on-month and 1.7 per cent year-on-year, the annual rate down from January's 1.8 per cent and December's 2.1 per cent.
Energy prices grew by 0.5 per cent on the month but were 4.9 per cent lower than a year earlier.
Eurostat said the rise in gas prices added 0.21 percentage point to overall year-on-year inflation, more expensive restaurants and cafes another 0.15 percentage point and electricity 0.12 percentage point.
Pricier vegetables and meat also boosted the index.
The goods with the biggest downward impact on the index were fuels, heating oil, telecommunications, clothes, and audiovisual and information technology equipment, Eurostat said.
Separately, Eurostat said euro zone employment contracted for the second quarter in a row in the last three months of 2008, falling 0.3 per cent, or 453,000 people, from the previous quarter after a 0.1 per cent dip in the third.
Over all of 2008, employment grew by 0.8 per cent or 1.137 million people in the euro area, compared with a 1.8 per cent rise in 2007.
Reuters