Germany consumer inflation remains unchanged on month, likely to rise in near term

German consumer prices remained steady in September from August, continuing to cause a headache for the European Central Bank, even though markets anticipate a pick-up in prices in the coming months.

Consumer prices harmonized according to European Union standards were unchanged in September from August and rose 0.5 percent on the year, data released by the Federal Statistics Office, Destatis, showed Thursday, confirming its first estimate published on Sept. 29.

Further, Destatis said that energy prices continued to put a downward pressure on the consumer price index but added that energy prices declined less in September on annual comparison than in the previous months. Specifically, energy prices in September fell by 3.6 percent on the year, after a year-on-year fall of 5.9 percent in August and 7.0 percent in July.

Consumer prices measured according to national standards rose by 0.1 percent on the month in September and rose by 0.7 percent on the year, also unchanged from the first estimate, Destatis said. It added that the annual inflation rate is the highest since May 2015 which saw a similar reading of +0.7 percent, reports confirmed.

Meanwhile, Oxford Economics said in a recent note that it was expecting the ECB to revise up its inflation forecast in December, for the first time since March 2015.