The head of France's central bank has said central bankers around the world are worried that high energy and raw materials prices may feed into overall inflation.
Speaking to the Le Figaro newspaper, Christian Noyer also signalled that the ECB was likely to increase its key rates soon, as is widely expected.
Noyer, who as governor of the French bank sits on the monetary policy committee of the European Central Bank, told the newspaper that the rising price of oil 'is bad for the world economy'. He added that supply and demand conditions did not justify the current high price of oil.
Noyer said that the ECB was 'going in the direction of a very progressive normalisation of monetary policy'. Most economists expect a 0.25 point interest rate rise at the next ECB meeting in August.
Meanwhile, new industrial orders in the euro zone grew more quickly than expected in May, surging 2.3% compared with April, according to the EU's Eurostat agency. Orders were up 14.2% compared with the same month a year earlier.
Analysts had expected a monthly rise of just 0.4%. The figures marked a sharp upturn from April when new industrial orders fell 0.8% and rose 3.9% over one year.
