Eurozone inflation rises slightly but still negative in May

The inflation in the 19-country Eurozone was expected to be at minus 0.1 percent in May, official data showed on Tuesday, slightly up from the minus 0.2 percent in the previous month.

Looking at the main components of Eurozone's inflation, services was expected to have the highest annual rate in May at 1 percent, followed by food, alcohol and tobacco at 0.8 percent, said Eurostat, the statistic agency of the European Union (EU).

Although the energy prices continued to drag inflation, the recent rise in oil prices during the month contributed to the upward momentum, according to the agency.

Economists argued that May's reading stood weaker than expectation but forecast the inflation to climb over in the coming months unless oil prices drop back sharply. The bloc was predicted to get out of deflation in the second half of this year.

The inflation in the single currency bloc unexpectedly fell into negative territory in February and stood at zero in March, raising concerns on the effectiveness of the bloc's stimulus efforts.

To achieve the medium inflation target at "below, but close to 2 percent", the European Central Bank (ECB) has announced a series of massive stimulus measures since the start of last year when a massive trillion-euro asset purchases program, dubbed as quantitative easing, was launched.

On March 10, the bank decided to implement further monetary stimulus measures including cutting the three key interest rates, expanding its monthly purchase of assets by 20 billion euros (22.31 billion U.S. dollars) to 80 billion euros.

The bank also brought investment grade euro-denominated bonds issued by non-bank corporations into the asset purchase program, as well as conducted a new serious of targeted longer-term refinancing operations.

It lowered the interest rate on the deposit facility by 10 basis points to minus 0.3 percent in December last year. Endit