Inflation rose in April in the 19-country eurozone, at first an encouraging mark for the European Central Bank in its struggle to sustainably raise prices.
 
The European Union's statistics agency Eurostat said Friday that yearly inflation rose to 1.7 percent in April from 1.4 percent in March. Core inflation, which excludes volatile items such as food and fuel, jumped to 1.2 percent from 0.8 percent.
 
Analysts at UniCredit bank said that the leap was boosted by the late date of Easter this year, which distorted a number of prices. They expect core inflation to stay back to around 1 percent.
 
The path of inflation is essential because it strikes monetary policy, which in turn has wide-ranging impacts on consumers and businesses. Weak inflation will push the ECB toward keeping interest rates low for longer, holding down borrowing costs for businesses and home buyers, and yet limiting returns on savings in bank accounts and other conservative holdings.
 
The ECB has reduced interest rates and bought 2.6 trillion euros ($2.9 trillion) in bonds over almost four years in an attempt for boosting inflation toward its goal of just under 2 percent and keep it there continuously. The central bank ceased the bond purchase program at the end of last year, saying it was progressively confident that inflation would move toward its goal after a while.
 
The bank had to backtrack amid weak economic data, saying March 7 that it would hold interest rates at existing record lows at least until the end of the year rather than at least until this autumn. Some professionals assume the bank and its president, Mario Draghi, will have to increase the promise to keep rates unchanged into 2020 in an attempt to get inflation higher.
 
This article is originally posted on TRONSERVE.COM