Consumer prices - October 2022

In October 2022 the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was +3.4% on monthly basis and +11.8% on annual basis (from +8.9%); the the flash estimate was +11.9%.

The wide speed-up of the growth on annual basis of All-item index was mainly due to the prices of Energy (from +44.5% in September to +71.1%), for both Regulated energy products (from +47.7% to +51.6%) and Non-regulated energy products (from +41.2% to +79.4%), and, to a lesser extent, to those of Food including alcohol (from +11.4% to +13.1%), for both Processed food including alcohol (from +11.4% to +13.3%) and Unprocessed food (from +11.0% to +12.9%) and to the prices of Non energy industrial goods (from +4.0% to +4.6%). Quite the opposite, the growth on annual basis of the prices of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care, slowed down (from +5.7% to +5.2%).

Therefore, core inflation (excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +5.3% (up from +5.0% in the previous month) and inflation excluding energy was +5.9% (up from +5.5% in September).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +17.6% (up from +12.5% in the previous month) and that of prices of Services was +3.8% (slightly down from +3.9%). As a consequence, the negative inflationary gap between Services and Goods strongly enlarged (-13.8 percentage points; -8.6 in September).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by 1.8% on monthly basis and by +12.6% on annual basis (up from +10.9% in the previous month).

The increase on monthly basis of NIC was mainly due to the prices of Non-regulated energy products (+28.3%) and of Regulated energy products (+20.0%), and, to a lesser extent, of Unprocessed food (+2.4%), of Processed food including alcohol (+1.6%), of Non-durable goods (+0.7%) and Durable goods (+0.6%); the prices of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (-0.7%) and of Services related to transport (-0.8%), decreased, mainly for seasonal factors.

In October 2022, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) increased by 3.8% on monthly basis and by 12.6% on annual basis (from +9.4% in the previous month); the the flash estimate was +12.8%.