Euro zone annual inflation is expected to have shot up to 2.4% in January, the EU said today, fuelling household fears of an earlier rise in interest rates than previously thought. The European Union Eurostat agency said the flash-estimate climb, from 2.2% in December, was almost certain to be confirmed in official figures next month, but the jump may alter European Central Bank rhetoric at its latest monthly meeting on Thursday. The ECB's core target for economic management, inflation at or near, but not above 2%, has now been breached for the second successive month, and the euro zone figure comes on top of inflation in non-euro Britain topping 3.7% in December. Economists have long predicted that rates would rise only later this year from the record-low 1% that has held for the last 22 months across the euro zone, and initial reaction today left that view unchanged. Analysts blamed higher energy, commodity and food prices for the rise in inflation.