A year earlier, the rate was -0.3%. EU annual inflation was 4.4% in October 2021, up from 3.6% in September. A year earlier, the rate was 0.3%. These figures are published by Eurostat, the EU statistical office. The lowest annual rates were registered in Malta (1.4%), Portugal (1.8%), Finland and Greece (both 2.8%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Lithuania (8.2%), Estonia (6.8%) and Hungary (6.6%). Compared with September, annual inflation rose in all twenty-seven Member States. In October, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from energy (+2.21 percentage points, pp), followed by services (+0.86 pp), non-energy industrial goods (+0.55 pp) and food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.43 pp).