Eurozone inflation remained flat between July and August, markets had expected there to be a slowdown as energy prices slumped - but this was offset by rising food prices, and increases in the price of services.

New figures from Eurostat, Europe's statistics office show that eurozone prices rose by 0.2% year-on-year - a panel of economists polled by Reuters had expected the increase to have been 0.1%.

Overall energy prices were 7.1% lower than the same period in last year, but this was balanced out by rises in other sectors, the biggest increase was a 2.3% hike in the price of unprocessed food.

Excluding these two volatile markets, the ECB's 'core inflation' rate was up by 0.9% year-on-year - again this was the same reading as July.

Slumps in energy and commodity markets have helped to keep eurozone inflation far below the desired 2% rate.

ECB officials have indicated that they are prepared to increase the size of its quantitative easing bond buying programme if it deems that it is necessary to further-stimulate Europe's economy.