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Europe Producer-Price Inflation Unexpectedly Accelerates to 6.7%
European producer-price inflation unexpectedly accelerated to the fastest in 2 1/2 years in March, adding to concerns that surging energy costs will feed through to consumers and prompt the European Central Bank to raise interest rates further. Factory-gate prices in the euro region jumped 6.7 percent from a year earlier, the fastest since September 2008, after a 6.6 percent gain in February, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. Economists had projected a March increase of 6.6 percent, according to the median of 13 estimates in a Bloomberg news survey. In the month, prices advanced 0.7 ... (full story)