Consumer prices (provisional data)

In October 2015, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) rose by 0.2% compared with the previous month and by 0.3 with respect to October 2014, up from 0.2 in September 2015.

The slight speed up of the inflation was mainly due to the further increase of prices of Unprocessed food (+4.2%, from +3,3% in September 2015) and of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (+1.5%, from +1.1% in the previous month). These increases are partially offset by the further decrease of Regulated energy products (-2.0%, from -1.1% in October 2015) due to the wider decline of price of Gas  (-3.2%, from -0.5 in the previous month) .

Excluding energy and unprocessed food, core inflation was stable at 0.8%; excluding energy, the inflation rose by 1.1 (0.2 percentage points higher than in the previous month).

The increase on monthly basis of All items index was mainly due to the rise of prices of Electricity (+2.9%), of Gas (+1.9%) and of Unprocessed food (+0.8%); these increases were partially balanced by the monthly decline of prices of Non-regulated energy products (-0.8%) and of Services related to transport (-0.7%).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was -0.4% (from -0.5% observed in September 2015) and the annual rate of change of prices of Services was +1.0% (up from +0.9% in the previous month). As consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods held steady with respect to September 2015.

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by 0.3% on monthly basis and by 1.5% on annual basis (up from 1.2% in the previous month) .

In October 2015, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) rose by 0.5 compared with the previous month and by 0.3% with respect to October 2014 (up from +0.2% registered in September 2015).

Core inflation measured by Italian HICP was 1.0%, up from 0.8% in September 2015; also excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, the inflation was 1.0% (up from 0.8 in the previous month). Excluding energy, the inflation increased to 1.3% (also in this case 0.2 percentage points higher than in September 2015).

Date of next release: 13 November 2015