German inflation stable in August

Hessen: Inflation in Germany remained stable in August, with consumer prices 0.4 percent higher than the same time last year, the federal statistics office Destatis said on Tuesday.

The final data confirms a preliminary figure based on just six of Germany`s federal states released at the end of August.

"As in previous months, the low rate of inflation in August was mostly accounted for by falling energy prices," which shrank by 5.9 percent, Destatis said in a statement.

Inflation excluding energy would have stood at 1.1 percent, it said.

Looking at the rest of the consumer prices basket, food prices grew 0.9 percent compared with August 2015, while prices for other consumer goods grew 0.6 percent.

Meanwhile, service prices grew 1.3 percent, driven largely by a sharp increase in home rental costs -- which represent around 20 percent of household spending -- of 1.2 percent.

Using the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) preferred by the European Central Bank, inflation stood at 0.3 percent compared with August last year -- a fall of 0.1 percentage points since July.

That was well short of the ECB target of inflation just below 2.0 percent, enshrined in the institution`s mandate as being most favourable to growth.