31/03/2020 (Agence Europe) – According to a flash estimate published by the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat), the annual inflation rate in the euro area is estimated to be 0.7% in March 2020, down from 1.2% in February. Data on seventeen countries, for which estimates are available, indicate that the highest price increases would be in Slovakia (2.5%) and Lithuania (1.7%) and that the lowest would be in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, and Portugal (0.1% each). The price increase would amount to 1.3% in Germany and 0.7% in France. With regard to the main components of euro area inflation, the ‘food, alcohol, and tobacco’ sector is expected to have the highest annual rate in March (2.4%), followed by services (1.3%), non-energy industrial goods (0.5%), and energy (−4.3%). (MB)