German Inflation Rate Increases in August

Consumer price inflation in Germany picked up slightly in August, according to the Federal Statistical Office. The German consumer price index (CPI) was unchanged in August from the figure for July and was 1.1 percent higher than it had been in August 2002, the report stated. The 12-month rate of inflation was therefore slightly faster than the previous month when the cost of living in Germany, the biggest euro zone economy, rose by 0.9 percent year-on-year. However, the annual inflation rate in Germany is still far below the European Central Bank's ceiling of 2.0 percent. The figures released on Tuesday were lower than preliminary estimates published by the Statistics Office at the end of August, which had calculated that consumer prices in Germany rose by 0.1 percent month-on-month and by 1.2 percent year-on-year in August.