Consumer prices - March 2022

In March 2022 the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was +1.0% on monthly basis and +6.5% on annual basis (from +5.7% in February); the flash estimate was +6.7%.

The speed-up of the growth on annual basis of All-item index was mainly due to the prices of Energy (from +45.9% in February to +50.9%), especially of those of Non-regulated energy products (from +31.3% to +36.4%), whereas those of Regulated energy products confirmed their huge increase (+94.6%). Moreover, although to a lesser extent, also prices of Processed food including alcohol sped up (from +3.1% to +3.9%) together with those of Unprocessed food (from +6.9% to +8.0%) and of Durable goods (from +1.2% to +1.6%). Quite the opposite, the prices of Services related to transport slowed down (from +1.4% to +1.0%)

Core inflation (excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +1.9% (up from +1.7% in the previous month) and inflation excluding energy was +2.5% (up from +2.1% in February).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +9.8% (from +8.6% in February) and that of prices of Services was +1.8% (the same as in the previous month). As a consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods was still negative and equal to -8.0 percentage points (from -6.8 in February).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by 0.8% on monthly basis and by 5.0% on annual basis (up from +4.1% in the previous month).

The increase on monthly basis was mainly due to the prices of Non-regulated energy products (+7.1%) and, to a lesser extent, to those of Processed food including alcohol (+0.9%), of Services related to transport (+0.9%), of Unprocessed food (+0.6%) and of Semi-durable goods (+0.5%).

In March 2022 the rate of change of the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) was +2.4% on monthly basis, also due to the end of the winter sales of Clothing and footwear (not considered by NIC), and +6.8% on annual basis (from +6.2% in February); the flash estimate was +7.0%.

In the first quarter of 2022, inflation measured by HICP had an impact on the households with less purchasing power (+8.3%) clearly wider than the impact on those with greater spending power (+4.9%).