Consumer prices (provisional data) - February 2022

According to preliminary estimates, in February 2022 the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was +0.9% on monthly basis and +5.7% on annual basis (from +4.8% in the previous month).

The speed-up of the growth on annual basis of All-item index was mainly due to the prices of Energy (from +38.6% in January to +45.9%), especially of those of Non-regulated energy products (from +22.9% to +31.3%), whereas those of Regulated energy products confirmed their huge increase (from +94.6% to +94.4%). Moreover, also prices of Unprocessed food (from +5.3% to +6.9%) and of Processed food including alcohol (from +2.2% to +3.2%) sped up.

Core inflation (excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +1.7% (up from +1.5% in the previous month) and inflation excluding energy was +2.1% (up from +1.8% in January).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +8.6% (from +7.0% in January) and that of prices of Services was +1.9% (from +1.8% in the previous month). As a consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods was still negative and equal to -6.7 percentage points (from -5.2 in January).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by 0.8% on monthly basis and by 4.2% on annual basis (up from +3.2% in the previous month).

The increase on monthly basis was mainly due to the prices of Non-regulated energy products (+8.3%), of Unprocessed food (+1.7%), of Processed food including alcohol and of Durable goods (+0.5% for both).

In February 2022, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) increased by 0.8% on monthly basis and by 6.2% on annual basis (from +5.1% in January).