Euro Area Inflation Lowered to 2.7%; German Confidence Soars

Arthi Gupta
17 Jan, 2012
New York City

The European rescue fund raised

[R]1:30 PM Frankfurt – The European rescue fund raised €1.501 billion from the sale of its new six-month bills and Euro area annual inflation eased and new passenger car registrations in the European Union fell in December. German confidence soared in January.[/R]

EFSF Bond Auction

The European Financial Stability Facility raised €1.501 billion from the sale of its new six-month bills, according to data from the Bundesbank.

The euro area rescue fund sold the 6-month paper at an average yield of 0.2664% and the demand was 3.1 times the offered loans.

Euro Area Inflation Eases

Euro area annual inflation eased to 2.7% in December from 3% in November, final data from Eurostat showed and the inflation estimate was revised slightly down from the flash estimate of 2.8%.

On a monthly basis, consumer prices rose 0.3% in December.

Annual inflation in EU declined to 3% in December, from 3.4% in November. Monthly inflation was 0.3% in December.

Europe New Car Sales Drop

New passenger car registrations in the European Union declined 6.4% from a year ago in December to 953,108 units, the European Automobile Manufacturers'' Association said. The latest drop follows the 3.5% decrease in November.

The sales in Germany, the only major market to show an increase, rose 6.1% annually to 244,501 units.

In the year 2011, the number of new car registrations in the European Union dropped 1.7% from last year to 13,111,209 units, the agency said.

German Confidence Soars

German economic confidence improved strongly in January, the Mannheim based Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) said today.

The economic sentiment index rose by 32.2 points to -21.6 points in January, the highest level of the indicator since July 2011.

The assessment of the current economic situation improved 1.6 points to 28.4.

Swedish Jobless Rate Stable

Sweden''s unemployment rate remained unchanged from last year at 4.7% in December, data from a survey by AMV showed.

The number of unemployed persons decreased modestly to 214,304 in December from 216,020 a year earlier.