Eurostat said, in April 2020, a month marked by COVID-19 containment measures in all euro area countries, euro area annual inflation is expected to be 0.4%, down from 0.7% in March. Economists had expected a fall to 0.1%. Meanwhile, the core figures rose 0.9 % in the reported month when compared to 0.7% expectations and 1.0% previous.

Looking at the main components of euro area inflation, food, alcohol & tobacco is expected to have the highest annual rate in April (3.6%, compared with 2.4% in March), followed by services (1.2%, compared with 1.3% in March), non-energy industrial goods (0.3%, compared with 0.5% in March) and energy (-9.6%, compared with -4.5% in March).