UK inflation falls to 4 pct of pct 4.4 (AP)

LONDON - consumer prices in Britain inflation falls unexpectedly in March, official figures showed Tuesday, relieving the pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates next month.

The National Statistical Office said prices for consumption increased by 4% in the year to March, down 4.4% February rate. The fall was largely due to reduce costs of food, non-alcoholic beverages, air travel and leisure.

The decline is the first in eight months and was unexpected. Most analysts believe that inflation would stay at least at the level of February.

The impact was felt immediately in the foreign exchange markets, where traders moved to reduce their expectations of an increase in the rate of interest in May. Sterling passed to $ 1.6310 $1.6260 before the release of the data, while the euro climbed above 0.8912 book pound 0.8842.

"News of surprise of today can take the pressure off the coast of the Committee of the monetary policy of the Bank of England to raise rates next month," said Scott Corfe, Economist at the Centre of the economy and research of the company.

"Again, with rising prices of consumer double the central objective of the Bank, he y many reasons for inflation hawks remain concerned about the loss of credibility of the Bank" Corfe added.

Inflation remains a sore head for rate-setters, to the Bank of England as it has been above the target of 2 per cent for 16 straight months, largely because of rising energy costs and higher sales taxes.

The inflation figures came after previous data of the British Retail Consortium showed the sharpest decline in sales at retail in at least 16 years. He revealed that the total sales were 1.9% in March that the previous year, the largest decline since the survey in 1995.

"This year the later Easter is a factor, but this fall goes beyond what can be explained by that alone," said Stephen Robertson, Director General of the Consortium. "Evil high inflation and low wages growth produced the first year on year fall in revenue available for thirty years.".

Figures echo recent findings of the BRC elsewhere that the British economy is not as strong as some of his peers, recovering as Germany as households the brakes to cope with high inflation, increased taxes and fees high energy.

The National Statistics Office also reported that Britain's seasonally adjusted trade deficit for goods and services eased 3.9 billion pounds ($6.3 billion) in January to February $ 2.4 billion, mainly reflecting an improvement of 1 billion pounds in the trade of goods.

(This version corrects corrects time since the last drop in the third paragraph.) Mises_à_jour currency rates.w)

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