German inflation higher in April: data

Inflation in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, crept higher in April with consumer prices rising by 0.5 percent year-on-year, final data showed on Wednesday.

The previous month, the consumer price index had risen by 0.3 percent on a 12-month basis, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement.

The final data represent a fractional upward revision from the 0.4 percent originally reported at the end of April.

Using the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) — the yardstick used by the European Central Bank — inflation in Germany rose by 0.3 percent percent year-on-year in April, still way under the ECB’s annual inflation target of just below two percent.

The data nevertheless appear to confirm that the ECB’s monetary policy measures are slowly beginning to push up inflation.

In March, the ECB embarked on a massive trillion euro ($1.1 trillon) bond purchase programme to ward off deflation and end stagnation in the eurozone economy.