Consumer prices (provisional)

According to preliminary estimates, in November 2018 the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) decreased by 0.1% on monthly basis and increased by 1.7% with respect to November 2017, up from +1.6% in the previous month.

The dynamics of inflation in November was due to the slight acceleration of prices of different types of products (thereof Processed food including alcohol from +1.0% in October to +1.3%, Unprocessed food from +0.8% to +1.1%, Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care from +1.0% to +1.2% and of Services related to transport from +1.8% to +2.0%). These accelerations prevailed on the slowdown of prices of Non-regulated energy products (from +9.5% to +7.8%) that, together with prices of Regulated energy products (stable at +10.7%), explain almost half of the general inflation rate.

Both Core inflation excluding energy and unprocessed food and inflation excluding energy were +0.9% (up respectively from +0.7% and +0.8% in October).

The decrease on monthly basis of All items index was especially due to prices of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (-1.2%) and of Services related to transport (-0.9%), only partially offset by the increase of Unprocessed food (+1.1%).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +1.9% (up from +1.8% in October) and that one of prices of Services was +1.4% (up from +1.3%). As a consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods was still negative and equal to -0.5 percentage points (the same as in the previous month).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by 0.7% on monthly basis and by 1.1% on annual basis (from +0.7% in the previous month).

In November 2018, according to preliminary estimates, the rate of change of Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) decreased by 0.2% with respect to the previous month and increased by 1.7% with respect to November 2017 (the same annual rate of change observed in October).