Consumer prices

In December 2016 the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) increased by 0.4% on monthly basis and by 0.5 with respect to December 2015 (up from +0.1% registered in November 2016). The flash estimate was confirmed.

In 2016, the average annual rate of change of consumer prices, measured by NIC, was negative (-0.1%, from +0.1% in 2015; the previous negative annual rate of change, equal to -0.4%, was in 1959), whereas, excluding energy and unprocessed food, core inflation was +0.5% (down from +0.7% in 2015).

The significant increase, in December, of the annual rate of change of All items index was mainly due to the speed-up of the annual growth of prices of Services related to transport (+2.6%, from +0.9% in November), of Non-regulated energy products (+2.4%, +0.3% in the previous month) and of Unprocessed food (+1.8%, from +0.2% in November).

Excluding energy and unprocessed food, core inflation in December was +0.
6% (up from +0.4% registered in the previous month); excluding only energy, the inflation was +0.7% (0.3 percentage points higher than that in November 2016).

The increase, with respect to November 2016, of All items index was mainly due to the monthly increase of prices of Services related to transport (+1.9%), Non-regulated energy products (+1.1%), Unprocessed food (+1.0%) and Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (+0.5%).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +0.1% (from -0.4% observed in the previous month; the first positive rate of change after negative thirty-four) and the annual rate of change of prices of Services was +0.9% (up from +0.5% in November 2016). As a consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods decreased by 0.1 percentage points with respect to November 2016.

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by 0.4% on monthly basis and by 0.6% on annual basis (from -0.1% in the previous month).

In
December 2016 the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) increased by 0.4% with respect to the previous month and by 0.5% with respect to December 2015 (from +0.1% in November 2016). The flash estimate was confirmed.

The average annual inflation rate in 2016, measured by Italian HICP, was -0.1% (from +0.1 in 2015).