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German consumer prices, harmonised to make them comparable with inflation data from other European Union countries, rose by 1.4 percent year-on-year in April after increasing by 1.5 percent in the previous month, the Federal Statistics Office said.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected consumer price inflation to hold steady.
The preliminary numbers also showed that monthly EU-harmonised prices were down 0.1 percent. That compared with the Reuters consensus forecast for them to be unchanged.
Inflation figures from Germany are closely watched because of their influence on the European Central Bank's monetary policy.