Eurozone inflation revised down to 1.1 pct in February

BRUSSELS, March 16 (Xinhua) -- The final reading of eurozone annual inflation in February was slighted lower than the previous estimate, European Union's statistics agency Eurostat said on Friday.

The annual inflation slowed to 1.1 percent, from 1.3 percent in January and slightly lower than the previous estimate of 1.2 percent.

The decline was mainly due to a decline in unprocessed food inflation from 1.1 percent in January to minus 0.9 percent in February, which subtracted 0.07 points from the overall final annual inflation.

The core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and unprocessed food, stood at 1.2 percent year-on-year the same annual rate as in January.

The headline annual inflation is still far away from the ECB's target of "below, but close to 2 percent" over the medium-term.

The European Central Bank (ECB) foresees the annual inflation at 1.4 percent in 2018, 1.4 percent in 2019 and 1.7 percent in 2020.

ECB president Mario Draghi has said "further evidence" has yet to show that prices were rising at a level consistent with the bank's inflation target, thus policy would "remain patient, persistent and prudent". Enditem