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| - Inflation in Europe's largest economy Germany picked up in January, preliminary official data showed Thursday, driven by a bound in energy price growth. Prices were 1.7 percent higher than a year before, federal statistics authority Destatis said, up from a 1.5 percent pace in December. Until the end of 2019, price growth had been slowing over several months. Measured using the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, the European Central Bank's preferred yardstick, inflation picked up 0.1 points, to 1.6 percent. By far the biggest acceleration in price growth came in energy, leaping from -3.7 percent in November and -0.1 percent in December to a 3.4 percent increase in January. Meanwhile food price inflation picked up slightly, while the pace of home rental price growth held steady. In pursuit of higher inflation, the ECB has pumped 2.6 trillion euros ($2.9 trillion) into the eurozone economy since 2015 in "quantitative easing" (QE) bond-buying programmes, and set interest rates at historic lows. By loosening the supply of credit, the Frankfurt institution hopes to power growth and, in turn, boost inflation towards its just below 2.0 percent goal. But across the 19-nation eurozone, price growth reached just 1.3 percent in December, and is forecast to pick up to just 1.6 percent by 2022. Under new chief Christine Lagarde, the ECB has launched a review of its monetary policy strategy, which could alter the tools it uses to pursue its inflation target or even make changes to how the goal itself is defined. tgb/jh
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