Europe ‘Ahead’ of Fed on Inflation, BlackRock’s Fisher Says - by Sarah McDonald and Candice Zachariahs

Europe’s central bank will raise interest rates before the U.S. Federal Reserve, curbing the region’s growth prospects, said BlackRock Inc.’s Peter Fisher.

“They’re going to be a little more worried about inflation pass-through from commodity prices than the U.S.,” Fisher, 54, the head of fixed income at the world’s biggest money manager and a former U.S. Treasury undersecretary, said in an interview in Sydney today. “They’ll be ahead of the Fed.”

Even as Europe grapples with a sovereign debt crisis, inflation in the 17-nation euro region quickened to 2.3 percent in January, the fastest since October 2008, according to data published by the European Union’s statistics office yesterday. That contrasts with the U.S., where the inflation gauge watched by the Fed, which excludes food and energy costs, increased 0.7 percent in the 12 months through December, the smallest advance since records began in 1959.

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