Consumer prices (provisional data)

In February 2018, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) increased by 0.1% on monthly basis and by 0.6% compared with February 2017 (it was +0.9% in January 2018).

In February, the slowdown of the growth on annual basis of All items index was almost exclusively due to the deceleration of prices of Unprocessed food (-3.2%, that reverse the trend from +0.4% in the previous month), strengthened by that one of Energy, in particular of Regulated energy products (+5.2% down from +6.4% in January).

As a consequence, Excluding energy and unprocessed food, core inflation was +0.7% (0.1 percentage points higher than in January) and inflation excluding energy was +0.3% (+0.6% in the previous month).

The slight increase on monthly basis of All items index was mainly due to the prices of Services related to transport (+1.5%) which were also affected by seasonal factors. This growth was partially offset by the decrease of prices of unprocessed food (-0.7%) and Durable goods (-0.5%).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +0.5% (down from +1.3% in January) and that one of prices of Services was +0.8% (up from +0.6% in the previous month). As a consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods was positive again after five months and equal to +0.3 percentage points (it was -0.7 percentage points in January).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food decreased by 0.2% on monthly basis and by 0.1% on annual basis (down from +1.2% in the previous month).

In February 2018, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) decreased by 0.3% compared with the previous month and increased by 0.7% with respect to February 2017 (it was +1.2% in January). The decrease on monthly basis was mainly due to the further reductions of prices within the winter sales of Clothing and footwear (-4.0% compared with January 2016), which are not taken into account in the national index NIC.

In February both core inflation, measured by Italian HICP (+0.8%) and inflation excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco (+0.7%) were the same as in January while inflation excluding energy was +0.5% (0.3 percentage points lower than in January).