BERLIN, Oct 23 - Two German states on Thursday reported rising annual inflation in October, in line with analysts' predictions for pan-German data probably to be released on Friday. The east German state of Brandenburg said inflation rose to 1.3 percent from 1.1 percent in September, while the west German state of Hesse said inflation there rose to 1.1 percent from 1.0 percent the previous month. Consumer prices in both states were unchanged on the month. They were the first of six major German states to report data used to calculate a preliminary inflation figure for the whole of Germany. The other states are due to report in the course of Thursday and on Friday. Prior to the states' data, the median forecast of 11 analysts polled by was for German consumer prices to be unchanged month-on-month in October and for annual inflation to rise to 1.2 percent from 1.1 percent in September.
Germany is the second of the 12 euro zone countries to report consumer price data for October after data from Italian cities on Wednesday showed inflation there probably rose 0.1 percent month-on-month, the slowest rate in eight months. The Italian data indicated annual inflation at 2.6 percent, the lowest year-on-year rate since February, analysts said. Italy's statistics office is due to issue a first official estimate of Italian inflation on October 30. Eurozone inflation was unchanged at 2.1 percent in September, EU statistics office Eurostat said last week. The European Central Bank has said it expects inflation to hover around its two percent tolerance ceiling for the rest of the year but ease in 2004. "Our expectation is that inflation will be declining below two percent next year and we do not see at this moment a rebound," ECB board member Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa said on Saturday.//