Consumer prices - July 2022

In July 2022 the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was +0.4% on monthly basis and +7.9% on annual basis (from +8.0% in June), the same as the flash estimate.

The growth on annual basis of All-item index remains high even though it reduced by a tenth of a percentage point. This is due to opposite trends. On the one hand, the prices of Energy (from +48.7% to +42.9%), specifically those of Regulated energy products (from +64.3% to +47.9%), slowed down (those of Non-regulated energy products moved from +39.9% to +39.8%) together with the prices of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (from +5.0% to +4.6%). On the other hand, the prices of Processed food including alcohol (from +8.1% to +9.5%), of Services related to transport (from +7.2% to +8.9%), of Non-durable goods (from +2.9 to +3.6%), of Durable goods (from +2.8% to +3.3%) and of Services – miscellaneous (from +1.1% to +1.6%) sped-up.

Therefore, core inflation (excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +4.1% (up from +3.8% in the previous month) and inflation excluding energy was +4.7% (up from +4.2% in June).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +11.1% (from +11.3% in the previous month) and that of prices of Services was +3.6% (from +3.4%). As a consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods was still negative and equal to -7.5 percentage points (-7.9 percentage points in June).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by 0.4% on monthly basis and by 9.1% on annual basis (up from +8.2% in the previous month).

The increase on monthly basis of NIC was mainly due to the prices of Services related to transport (+2.7%) and of Processed food including alcohol (+1.4%), slowed down only by the prices of Unprocessed food (-1.7%).

In July 2022 the Italian harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) decreased by 1.1% on monthly basis (due to the summer sales not considered by NIC) and it increased by 8.4% on annual basis (from +8.5% in the previous month), the same as the flash estimate.