Consumer price indices: provisional data

In January 2016, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) declined by 0.2% compared with the previous month and rose by 0.3 with respect to January 2015, up from 0.1 in December 2015.

The speed up of the inflation was mainly due to the reduction of the annual decrease of prices of Energy products, of both Non-regulated (-5.8% from -8.7% in December 2015) and Regulated energy products (-1.3% from 2.0% in the previous month) and of the reversal trend of Services related to transport (+0.5%, from -1.7% in December 2015). These dynamics are partially offset by the slowdown of the annual growth of prices of Unprocessed food (+0.6%, from +2.3% in the previous month).

Excluding energy and unprocessed food, core inflation was 0.8%, up from 0.6 registered in December 2015; also excluding energy, the inflation was 0.8 (0.1 percentage points higher than that of the previous month).

The decrease on monthly basis of All items index was mainly due to the decline of prices of Energy products (-1.7%), of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (-0.5%) and of Unprocessed food (-0.5%); these decline are partially off-set by the monthly increase of prices of Non energy industrial goods and of Services – miscellaneous (both +0.2%) and of Processed food including alcohol (+0.1%).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was 0.0 (from -0.1% observed in December 2015) and the annual rate of change of prices of Services was +0.7% (up from +0.3% in the previous month). As consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods increased by 0.3 percentage points with respect to December 2015.

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food decreased by 0.1% on monthly basis and rose by 0.4% on annual basis (down from 0.9% in the previous month).

In January 2016, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) decreased by 2.2 compared with the previous month and rose by 0.4% with respect to January 2015 (up from +0.1% registered in December 2015).

The large decrease on monthly basis was mainly due to the winter sales of Clothing and footwear (-22.0% compared with December 2015), which are not taken into account in the national index NIC.

Core inflation measured by Italian HICP was 1.0%, up from 0.6% in December 2015; also excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, the inflation was 1.0% (up from 0.5 in the previous month). Excluding energy, the inflation increased to 0.9% (0.2 percentage points higher than in December 2015).

Note. On 10 February at 3:15 pm the full text was replaced due to the following adjustments: in Table 4, the value of the index, the m-o-m and y-o-y rate of change in the row “Non-energy industrial goods” have been adjusted.

Next release: 22 February 2016