WG:Eurozone inflation down for third month running
BRUSSELS (AP) — Inflation across the 17 European Union countries that use the euro fell for the third month running in March.
Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, says Wednesday that consumer prices in the eurozone were up 1.7 percent in March from the year before, down from the 1.8 percent recorded the previous month. Lower energy price inflation appears to have been the main reason behind the fall.
The decline takes inflation further below the European Central Bank's target of keeping price rises just below 2 percent.
Even so, the ECB is expected to keep its main interest rate unchanged at 0.75 percent at its monthly policy meeting Thursday.
The fall was widely expected, though some economists were anticipating a bigger decline to 1.6 percent.
