Eurozone inflation

BRUSSELS: Eurozone inflation remained unchanged at a lower-than-expected 0.1 per cent in November, official data showed on Wednesday, giving further encouragement to the European Central Bank (ECB) to pump up its stimulus. ECB President Mario Draghi is widely expected to boost the central bank’s contested bond-buying programme on Thursday given low inflation levels across 19 countries that share the euro. The data from EU’s Eurostat statistics agency came in lower than analysts’ forecast of 0.2 per cent inflation for the period, which is much lower than ECB’s official two per cent target. In March, the ECB launched a more than one-trillion-euro stimulus plan running through to September next year in order to snap a longperiod of low or negative inflation in the eurozone.