Eurozone inflation slows to 0.8% as economy struggles to recover

Eurozone inflation slowed in December, retreating farther from the European Central Bank’s ceiling as the 18-nation currency bloc struggled to strengthen its recovery from a record-long recession.

The annual rate dipped to 0.8% from 0.9% in November, the EU’s statistics office in Luxembourg said in a preliminary estimate.

That’s in line with the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 31 economists. The rate has been below the ECB’s 2% ceiling for 11 months, and sank to a four-year low of 0.7% in October.