Consumer prices - October 2021

In October 2021 the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was +0.7% on monthly basis and +3.0% on annual basis (from +2.5% in September); the flash estimate was +2.9%.

The speed-up of the growth on annual basis of all-item index was still mainly due to the prices of energy (from +20.2% to +24.9%), for both those of regulated energy products (from +34.3% to +42.3%) and those of non-regulated energy products (from +13.3% to +15.0%). Moreover, even if to a lesser extent, also prices of services related to transport sped up (from +2.0% to +2.4%).

Core inflation (excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +1.1% (from +1.0% in the previous month) and also inflation excluding energy was +1.1% (the same as in the previous month).

The increase on monthly basis was mainly due to the prices of regulated energy products (+17.0%) and, to a lesser extent, of non-regulated energy products (+1.0%) and of unprocessed food (+0.7%), only partially offset by the decrease of price of services related to transport (-0.7%) and of services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (-0.3%), largely affected by seasonal factors.

The annual rate of change of prices of goods was +4.2% (from +3.6%) and that one of prices of services was +1.3% (the same as in the previous month). As a consequence, the inflationary gap between services and goods was still negative and equal to -2.9 percentage points (-2.3 in September).

The rate of change of prices of grocery and unprocessed food was +0.3% on monthly basis and +1.0% on annual basis (up from +0.9% in the previous month).

In October 2021 the rate of change of the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) was +0.9% on monthly basis and +3.2% on annual basis (from +2.9% in September); the flash estimate was +3.1%.

On pages 12-13 the methodological note describes the choices adopted to deal with the ongoing issues deriving from Covid-19 crisis.