Inflation in Germany looked set to hold steady this month, consumer price data for key regional states showed today.
Consumer price statistics from six regional states - Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony - are used to calculate preliminary inflation for the whole of Germany.
In four of the six states, inflation remained steady; it slowed in one state and picked up marginally in the other.
The consumer price index (CPI) for Baden-Wuerttemberg rose by 1.4 per cent on a 12-month basis in August, the same rate of change as in July.
In Bavaria, the annual rate of inflation was unchanged at 1.3 per cent, and in the two eastern states of Brandenburg and Saxony it held steady at 0.5 per cent and 0.4 per cent, respectively.
Only in Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia did inflation pick up slightly - to 1 per cent in August from 0.9 per cent in July.
Price pressures are continuing to recede further up the inflation pipeline as a result of falling energy prices, separate data showed on Friday.
The Federal Statistics Office calculated the German producer price index (PPI) slipped by 0.3 per cent in July from the figure for June and was 1 per cent lower than it had been in July 2001.
Producer prices have been falling on a 12-month basis all this year, and dropped by 1.1 per cent year-on-year in June.
The office attributed the fall mainly to declining energy prices, excluding which PPI would have actually risen by 0.4 per cent on a 12-month basis.