Mubasher: The Euro area’s (EA) annual inflation rate growth registered 1.3% in March, rising from 1.1% a month earlier, data released by the European Union’s (EU) statistical office Eurostat showed on Wednesday.

Year-on-year, inflation for the EA, also known as the Eurozone, slowed from 1.5%.

The rise in EA inflation came on the back of the services sector, which added 0.67%, followed by 0.41% for food, alcohol, and tobacco, while the energy segment increased 0.20% and non-energy industrial goods edged up 0.07%, according to the Eurostat.

In the EU, inflation increased to 1.5% last month, up from 1.4% in February. Year-on-year, EU data indicated that the inflation was down from 1.6%.

Compared with February, inflation fell in six EU member states, remained stable in six others and rose in 15 countries.

The lowest annual inflation rates were recorded in Cyprus at -0.4%, Greece at 0.2%, and Denmark at 0.4%, the data indicated.

On the other hand, the highest rates were registered in Romania at 4.0%, Estonia at 2.9%, while Slovakia and Lithuania both saw inflation of 2.5% in March.

By 10:24 am GMT, the EUR/USD pair edged down 0.02% to $1.2367.