Inflation in Germany picked up slightly in January to 8.7%, ending two months of decline, driven by easing tensions in the energy sector, according to provisional official figures published on Thursday.
The indicator gained 0.1 percentage point compared to December, but remains below its maximum of 10.4% reached in October, the Destatis statistics institute reported in a press release.
In one month, prices rose 1.0%.
However, contrary to usual, the Destatis institute did not detail the distribution of the price increase in the different sectors.
Inflation is stabilizing at a high level in the euro zone’s largest economy, after a year 2022 that saw prices explode to levels not seen since the 1950s.
energy prices locked
This is explained, in particular, by the drop in tensions over energy prices, thanks to Berlin’s efforts to secure supplies of liquefied gas, and massive aid plans.
It should be noted that Berlin has released an endowment of 200,000 million euros to limit gas and electricity prices until 2024, and that it began to take effect in December.
The increase in the harmonized price index, which serves as a reference for the European Central Bank, also fell in January, to 9.2% annually.
But the indicator remains well above the ECB’s targets, set at 2% inflation over the medium term.
“Although the peak is likely to be exceeded, it is premature for the alert to end,” Fritzi Köhler-Geib, chief economist at German public bank KFW, said Thursday.
The ECB also raised its interest rates again by 0.50 points during its last monetary policy meeting at the end of January, and assured that this process has not finished.
The institution is now concerned about a price/inflation spiral in the Eurozone. Luis de Gundos, the vice president of the organization, thus called on the unions on Thursday to moderate their wage demands.
“The unions could be inclined to ask for excessive wage increases. We have to be careful,” he said in an interview with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Source: BFM TV
