Eurozone economy powers ahead with inflation expectations subdued: survey

BRUSSELS, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- The 19-country Eurozone has gained more pace in its economic upturn but inflation expectations were rising only slowly, an official survey said Wednesday.

The Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) rose from 114.1 in October to 114.6 in November, marking the highest level since October 2000, according to the European Commission, the European Union (EU)'s executive arm.

The monthly survey breakdown showed that the increase in sentiment was broad based. The industrial index rose to its highest ever level while the industrial export orders index pointed to annual goods export growth of over 10 percent.

In the meantime, services sentiment suggested that annual growth in the sector would continue picking up.

Despite the momentum it gained, the single currency zone is expected to see only slowly growing inflation, which could disappoint policy makers in Brussels and weigh on the central bank's approach to normalizing monetary policy.

The core inflation across the Eurozone, stripping out volatile items such as food and energy, has consistently stayed at less than 1.5 percent this year, way off the European Central Bank (ECB)'s inflation goal of "close but lower than 2 percent."

"We think that it (the ECB) will end its asset purchases in December 2018, then wait until September 2019 before raising interest rates," said a research of the Capital Economics. Enditem