Consumer prices - December 2022

In December 2022 the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) increased by 0.3% on monthly basis and by 11.6% on annual basis (from +11.8% in November), confirming the flash estimate.

In 2022, the average annual rate of change of consumer prices, measured by NIC, was +8.1% (+1.9% in 2021); core inflation, excluding energy and unprocessed food, was +3.8% (from +0.8% in 2021) and inflation excluding energy was +4.1% (+0.8% in 2021).

The slow down of the growth on annual basis of all-item index was mainly due to the prices of non-regulated energy products (from +69.9% to +63.3%), and of unprocessed food (from +11.4% to +9.5%) and of services related to transport (from +6.8% to +6.0%). On the contrary, the prices of regulated energy products (from +57.9% to +70.2%), of processed food including alcohol (from +14.3% to +14.9%), those of services related to recreation including repair and personal care (from +5.5% to +6.2%) and of services related to communication (from +0.2% to +0.7%) speed up.

In December 2022, core inflation (excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +5.8% (up from +5.6% in the previous month) and inflation excluding energy was +6.2% (from +6.1% in November).

The prices of grocery and unprocessed food increased by 0.4% on monthly basis and by +12.6% as compared with the same month of the previuos year (down from +12.7% in November).

The increase on monthly basis was mainly due to the prices of regulated energy products (+7.8%), of services related to recreation including repair and personal care (+1.4% affected by seasonal factors), of services related to transport (+1.1% also affected by seasonal factors), of processed food and alcohol (+0.8%) and of non energy industrial goods (+0.7%); on the other hand the prices of non-regulated energy products (-3.9%) and unprocessed food (-0.6%) slowed down.

In December 2022, the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) increased by 0.2% compared with the previous month and by 12.3% on annual basis (from +12.6% in November), confirming the flash estimate. In 2022 the average annual rate of change of HICP was +8.7% (+1.9% in 2021).

On average, in 2022, inflation measured by HICP had an impact on the households with less purchasing power (from +2.4% in 2021 to +12.1%) wider than the impact on the households with greater purchasing power for which, anyway, inflation sped up from +1.6% to +7.2%.