Consumer prices

In April 2016, the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) declined by 0.1% on monthly basis and by 0.5% on annual basis (the flash estimate was -0.4%), down from -0.2% in March 2016.

The larger decline on annual basis of the All items index was mainly due to the widening of the annual decrease of prices of Regulated energy products (-6.4%, from -2.7% in the previous month), to which contributed both the Natural gas (-9.9%, from -5.7% in March 2016) and the Electricity that registered a reversal trend (-1.9%, from +1.5% in the previous month).

Therefore, excluding energy, the inflation was still positive (+0.4%, as in March 2016). Excluding Energy and unprocessed food, core inflation was +0.5% (down from +0.6 registered in the previous month).

The slight decrease on monthly basis of the All items index was mainly due to the decline of prices of  Regulated energy products (-6.1%) which was not entirely offset by the rises of prices of Non-regulated energy products (+1.5%), of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (+0.8%) and of Services related to transport and Unprocessed food (+0.4% for both aggregates).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was -1.1% (from -1.0% observed in March 2016) and the annual rate of change of prices of Services was +0.4% (down from +0.7% in the previous month). As a consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods decreased by 0.2 percentage points with respect to March 2016.

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food rose by 0.1% on monthly basis and declined by 0.2% on annual basis (from -0.3% in the previous month).

In April 2016, the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) rose by 0.2% compared with the previous month and decreased by 0.4% with respect to April 2015 (the flash estimate was -0.3%), down from -0.2% registered in March 2016.The monthly increase was also due to the final end of the winter sales of Clothing and footwear (+3.1% with respect to March 2016), which are not taken into account in the national index NIC.

Core inflation measured by Italian HICP was +0.5%, down from +0.6% registered in the previous month; excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, the inflation was +0.6% (0.2 lower than in March 2016). Excluding energy, the inflation was +0.5%, as in March 2016.

In April 2016, the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices at constant tax rates (HICP-CT) rose by 0.3% compared with March 2016 and declined by 0.4% with respect to April 2015 (the same rate of change of HICP). Therefore, the difference between HICP and HICP-CT growth rates – which incorporated the effects of changes in indirect taxes occurred in the last twelve months – was zero: it has to be noted that this difference represents the upper limit of the impact of changes in indirect taxes occurred in the last twelve months on HICP, assuming their full and instantaneous pass-through on prices paid by consumers.