Consumer prices (provisional)

In January 2017, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) increased by 0.2 on monthly basis and by 0.9% with respect to January 2016, up from +0.5% in December 2016.

The increase, in January, of the annual rate of change of All items index was mainly due to the speed-up of the annual growth of prices of Non-regulated energy products (+9.0%, from +2.4% in the previous month) and of Unprocessed food (+5.3%, from +1.8% in December 2016); also the reduction of the annual decrease of prices of Regulated energy products (-3.0%, from -5.8% in the previous month) contributed to the rise of inflation.

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +1.2% (up from +0.1% in December 2016) and the annual rate of change of prices of Services was +0.6% (down from +0.9% in the previous month). Therefore, after 46 months, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods was negative and equal to -0.
6 percentage points.

Excluding energy and unprocessed food, core inflation was +0.5%, down from +0.6% in the previous month; excluding energy the inflation was +0.8%, from +0.7% in December 2016.

The increase on monthly basis of All items index was mainly due to the rise of prices of Non-regulated energy products (+3.0%), of Unprocessed food (+2.9%) and of Regulated energy products (+1.3%); these increases were partially offset by the monthly decrease of prices and of Services related to transport (-1.7%).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by 1.1% on monthly basis and by 1.9% on annual basis (from +0.6% in the previous month).

In January 2017, according to preliminary estimates, the rate of change of Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) decreased by 2.0% with respect to the previous month and increased by 0.7% with respect to January 2016 (the annual rate of change observed in December was +0.5%).

The large decrease on monthly basis was
mainly due to the winter sales of Clothing and footwear (-22.1% compared with December 2016), which are not taken into account in the national index NIC.

Core inflation measured by Italian HICP was +0.1% and the inflation excluding Energy, food, alcohol and tobacco was +0.3%, both down from +0.7% in December 2016; the inflation excluding Energy was +0.5% (0.4 percentage points lower than in the previous month).