German Producer Price Inflation Slows; Italian Orders Improve

Arthi Gupta
20 Apr, 2011
New York City

German producer price inflation slackened in March. Riksbank raised key rate by a quarter percentage point to 1.75%. Dutch consumer sentiment deteriorated in April. Italian industrial orders improved in February. Iceland jobless rate rose in the first quarter.

[R]12:00 PM Frankfurt – German producer price inflation slackened in March. Riksbank raised key rate by a quarter percentage point to 1.75%. Dutch consumer sentiment deteriorated in April. Italian industrial orders improved in February. Iceland jobless rate rose in the first quarter.[/R]

German Producer Price Inflation Slackens

Germany''s producer price inflation slowed to 6.2% in March from 6.4% in February, data from the Federal Statistics Office showed.

On a monthly comparison, producer prices also rose at a slower pace of 0.4% in March, following February''s 0.7% growth.

Estonia Producer Price Inflation Rises

Estonian producer prices increased at a pace of 5.2% annually in March following February''s 5% rise, data from Statistics Estonia showed on Wednesday.

Export prices grew 1.7% in March on a monthly basis taking the annual growth to 11.6%. Import prices advanced 1.2% from February and surged 13.9% on a yearly basis.

Riksbank Hikes Key Rate

The Swedish central bank on Wednesday raised its key benchmark interest rate to stabilize inflation close to the 2% target and to avoid resource utilization becoming too high.

The Executive Board of the Riksbank decided to hike the repo rate by 25 basis points to 1.75%.

Iceland Retains Rate

Iceland''s central bank left the benchmark seven-day collateralized lending rate at 4.25% for the second consecutive rate-setting meeting on Wednesday after slashing it by a quarter percentage point to the current rate in February.

The bank retained its other interest rates as well. The deposit rate was left unchanged at 3.25% and the overnight lending rate was maintained at 5.25%.

Iceland''s unemployment rate for the first quarter increased to 7.8% from 7.6% in the quarter a year ago, data released by Statistics Iceland showed on Wednesday. The jobless rate was 7.4% in the fourth quarter of 2010.

The number of jobless persons increased to 13,700 from 13,500 in the first quarter of 2010. The number of persons unemployed for a year or longer advanced to 3,800 from 2,500 in the same quarter last year.

Dutch Consumer Sentiment Deteriorates

Confidence among Dutch consumers deteriorated further in April as they were less willing to buy big ticket items compared to a month ago, the Central Bureau of Statistics said today.

The seasonally adjusted consumer confidence index fell to minus 10 in April from minus 8 in March.

Danish Consumer Confidence Up

Denmark''s headline consumer confidence index increased to 2 in April from minus 0.8 in March, data from Statistics Denmark showed. The measure had declined in the previous two months.

The measure of consumers'' expectation for their economic situation in the next twelve months improved to 11.2 in April from 9.7 in March. And the index of households'' perception of the country''s economic situation in the past twelve months improved to minus 4.7 in April from minus 11.1 in March.

Italian Industrial Orders Improve

Italy''s industrial orders increased a seasonally adjusted 1.9% on a monthly basis in February following January''s 0.4% decline, which was revised from 0.3%, data released by the statistics office ISTAT showed on Wednesday.

Annually, industrial orders rose an unadjusted 16.2% in February, slower than January''s 17.5% gain. Domestic market orders grew 17.4% and foreign booking rose 14.3%.