Eurozone inflation up to 1.2% in February

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

BRUSSELS, March 16 (Chinese media) -- Annual inflation in

the euro zone rose slightly to 1.2 percent in February, the European Union

(EU)'s statistics bureau Eurostat said on Monday, confirming a previous

estimate.

It was up from 1.1 percent in January but

significantly lower than 3.3 percent a year earlier.

Recent months saw inflation in the euro zone retreat

from its peak last summer thanks to fall of oil prices. In February, energy

prices in the euro zone dropped by 4.9 percent from the same period of 2008.

The main components with the highest annual rates in

February were alcohol and tobacco, up by 3.2 percent, while the lowest annual

rates were observed for transport, down by 2.7 percent.

The continuous easing of the inflationary pressure

paved way for the European Central Bank (ECB) to reduce its benchmark interest

rate to support economy which has been in deep recession amid the financial

crisis.

In its latest move, the Frankfurt-based ECB cut its

rate further early this month by another half percentage point to 1.5 percent,

the lowest level since the bank came into being in 1999.

In the 27-nation EU, annual inflation was 1.7 percent

in February, down from 1.8 percent in January and 3.5 percent a year earlier.

Among those member states whose data were available,

the lowest annual rates were observed in Ireland and Portugal, both at 0.1

percent, and the highest in Latvia, which was 9.4 percent.