Belgium has the second-highest inflation (4.4%) in the Eurozone, according to the latest Eurostat figures. Across the Eurozone, inflation continued to pick up in December (2.4%), for the third month in a row.
Rising energy prices were behind the acceleration, which had been expected. The underlying inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, did remain stable at 2.7% since September.
Belgium was among the countries with the highest inflation rate in the currency bloc at 4.4%, second only to Croatia (4.5%). These are harmonised inflation figures. However, the Belgian statistics office Statbel, which uses a different definition, kept it at 3.16% inflation.
Looking at the main components of Eurozone inflation, 'services' is expected to have the highest annual rate in December (4.0%, compared with 3.9% in November), followed by 'food, alcohol and tobacco' (2.7%, stable compared with November), 'non-energy industrial goods' (0.5%, compared with 0.6% in November) and 'energy' (0.1%, compared with -2.0% in November).
