Europe Producer Prices Increase the Most Since 2008

European producer prices rose at the fastest annual pace in more than two years in December after energy costs surged, adding to the European Central Bank’s inflation concerns.

Factory-gate prices in the euro region jumped 5.3 percent from a year earlier, the most since October 2008, after increasing 4.5 percent in November, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. Economists had forecast a gain of 5.2 percent, the median of 18 estimates in a Bloomberg survey showed. Prices rose 0.8 percent from November.