Consumer prices - February 2023

In February 2023 the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was +0.2% on monthly basis and +9.1% on annual basis (from +10.0% in January); the flash estimate was +9.2%.

The slow down of the annual inflation rate was mainly due to the prices of Regulated energy products (from -12.0% to -16.4%) and of Non-regulated energy products (from +59.3% to +40.8%). On the contrary, an upward contribution to the inflation rate came from the prices of Processed food including alcohol (from +14.9% to +15.5%), those of Unprocessed food (from +8.0% to +8.7%), Tobacco (from zero to +1.8%), Services related to recreation including repair and personal care (from +5.5% to +6.1%) and Services related to transport (from +5.9% to +6.4%).

In February, the core inflation (All-items excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +6.3% (up from +6.0% in January), while the annual rate of change of the All-items index excluding energy was +6.4% (up from +6.2% in the previous month).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +12.4% (from +14.1% in January) and that of prices of Services was +4.4% (+4.2% in the previous month). As a consequence, the negative inflationary gap between Services and Goods decreases (from -9.9 percentage points in January to -8.0).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by +1.3% on monthly basis and by +12.7% on annual basis (up from +12.0% in the previous month).

The month on month increase of NIC (+0.2%) was mainly due to the prices of Unprocesses food (+2.4%), Tobacco (+1.9%), Processed food including alcohol (+0.9%), Services related to transport (+0.8%), Durable goods (+0.7%), Non-durable goods (+0.6%), Services related to recreation including repair and personal care (+0.5%) and Services related to housing (+0.4%); at the opposite the prices of Regulated energy products (-4.9%) and Non-regulated energy products (-4.2%) slowed down.

In February 2023, the Italian harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) increased by 0.1% on monthly basis and by 9.8% on annual basis (from +10.7% in January); the flash estimate was +9.9%.