Consumer prices - August 2022

In August, the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was +0.8% on monthly basis and +8.4% on annual basis (from +7.9% in July), confirming the flash estimate.

The speed-up of the growth on annual basis of All-item index was mainly due to the prices of Energy (from +42.9% to +44.9%), specifically of Non-regulated energy products (from +39.8% to +41.6%; Regulated energy products confirmed the same wide increase of the previous month, equal to +47.9%), of Processed food including alcohol (from +9.5% to +10.4%) and of Durable goods (from +3.3% to +4.2%). Quite the opposite, the prices of Services related to transport slowed down (from +8.9% to +8.4%).

Therefore, core inflation (excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +4.4% (up from +4.1% in the previous month) and inflation excluding energy was +5.0% (up from +4.7% in July).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +11.8% (from +11.1% in the previous month) and that of prices of Services was +3.8% (from +3.6%). As a consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods was still negative and equal to -8.0 percentage points (-7.5 percentage points in July).
Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by 0.9% on monthly basis and by 9.6% on annual basis (up from +9.1% in the previous month).

The increase on monthly basis of NIC was mainly due to the prices of Non-regulated energy products (+3.0%), of Services related to transport (+2.4%, also due to seasonal factors), of Processed food including alcohol (+1.1%), of Durable goods (+1.1%) and of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (+0.7%, also due to seasonal factors).

In August 2022 the Italian harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) increased by 0.9% on monthly basis and by 9.1% on annual basis (from +8.4% in the previous month); the flash estimate was +9.0%.