Consumer prices (provisional data)

With the indices of January 2018, Istat introduces the use of scanner data in the estimate of inflation, with reference to grocery products (processed food, products for house maintenance and personal care) sold in hypermarkets and supermarkets. In 2018, as required by Regulation (EC) no. 1921 (19/10/2001), the estimate of the impact of this new data source on the annual rate of change of the harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) will be made available on a monthly basis, when the final data are released.

In January 2018, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) increased by 0.2% on monthly basis and by 0.8% compared with January 2017 (it was +0.9% in December 2017).

In January, the slight slowdown of the growth on annual basis of All items index was mainly due to the deceleration of prices of Unprocessed food (+0.1% down from +2.4% in December), of Non-regulated energy
products (+2.5% down from +4.4%) and of Services related to transport (+1.4% down from +2.8%), partially offset by the acceleration of prices of Processed food (+2.3% up from +0.8% in the previous month) and of Regulated energy products (+5.2%, up from +3.7%).

In January, both core inflation and inflation excluding energy were +0.6% (the first 0.2 percentage points higher than in December and the second stable with respect to the previous month).

The slight increase on monthly basis of All items index was mainly due to the prices of Energy products, both Regulated (+2.9%) and Non-regulated (+1.1%), and of Processed food including alcohol (+1.5%), offset by the decrease in prices of Services related to transport (-3.0%).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +1.1% and that one of prices of Services was +0.6%, the same values registered in December 2017 for both of them. As a consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods was negative and equal to -0.5 percentage
points (as in the previous month).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by 1.0% on monthly basis and by 1.2% on annual basis (down from +1.3% in the previous month).