(dpa) - Inflation in the 15-member eurozone was revised up to 3.3 per cent in February, data released Friday showed, as a result pushing the annual rate for consumer prices further away from the European Central Bank's 2.0 per cent target.
In its preliminary estimate released earlier this month, the European Union's statistics office said annual inflation in the eurozone came in at 3.2 per cent last month with the revised inflation rate the highest since the euro's launch in January 1999.
But rising oil and food prices have helped to fuel inflationary pressures with the February rate edging up from 3.2 per cent in January. A year earlier eurozone inflation stood at 1.8 per cent.
Coming amid a global economic slowdown, signs that inflation has been gaining ground have placed the world's central banks in a dilemma.
In the meantime, however, the pickup in consumer prices is allowing the ECB to talk tough on the threat posed by inflation and to buy for time on monetary policy and to delay possibly following other the world's other leading central banks in trimming rates to spur economic growth.
Despite stubbornly high annual inflation rates among the European Union's new member states in Central and Eastern European, inflation in the broader-based 27-member EU was 3.4 per cent in February unchanged from January, Eurostat said.