FRANKFURT: Consumer prices in Germany rose by 0.3 percent in December, bringing the average inflation rate for the year as a whole also to 0.3 percent, official data showed on Tuesday.
The previous month, the national inflation yardstick for Europe's biggest economy had edged up by 0.4 percent.
Using the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) -- the barometer used by the European Central Bank -- the German inflation rate stood at 0.2 percent for December alone and 0.1 percent for the whole of 2015, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement.
The ECB regards annual inflation rates of close to but just under 2.0 percent as conducive to healthy economic growth and has recently launched a raft of measures to kickstart prices and push area-wide inflation back up nearer that level.
A controversial programme of sovereign bond purchases, known as QE or quantitative easing, was rolled out in March and initially appeared to work.
But the economic slowdown in China and depressed oil prices have pushed inflation expectations back down again.
Last month, ECB chief Mario Draghi said the programme would be extended by six months until March 2017.
The inflation data on Tuesday confirmed a preliminary flash estimate released earlier this month.
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