Consumer prices - January 2023

In January 2023 the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was +0.1% on monthly basis and +10.0% on annual basis (from +11.6% in December); the flash estimate was +10.1%.

The slow down of the annual inflation rate was mainly due to the prices of Regulated energy products (from +70.2% to -12.0%) and, to a lesser extent, of Non-regulated energy products (from +63.3% to +59.3%), of Unprocessed food (from +9.5% to +8.0%) and of Services related to recreation including repair and personal care (from +6.2% to +5.5%). Quite the opposite, the prices of Durable goods (from +6.4% to +6.8%), those of Non-durable goods (from +6.1% to +6.7%) and of Services related to housing (from +2.1% to +3.2%) speed up.

In January, the core inflation (All-items excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +6.0% (up from +5.8% in December), while the annual rate of change of the All-items index excluding energy was +6.2% (the same as in the previous month).

The annual rate of change of the prices of Goods was +14.1% (from +17.1%); as for Services the year on year growth rate was +4.2% (+4.1% in the previous month). As a consequence, the negative inflationary gap between Services and Goods was -9.9 percentage points (from -13.0 p.p. in December).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by +0.9% on monthly basis and by +12.0% on annual basis (down from +12.6% in the previous month).

The month on month increase of the All-items index was due to the prices of Services related to housing (+1.6%), of Processed food (+1.3%), of Durable good (+1.1%), Non-durable goods (+0.7%), of Unprocessed food (+0.6%) and Non-regulated energy products (+0.5%); on the other hand the prices of Regulated energy products (-25.7%) and of Services related to transport (-1.7% mainly for seasonal factors) slowed down.

In January 2023, the Italian harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) decreased by 1.5% on monthly basis, due to the winter sales not considered by NIC, and increased by 10.7% on annual basis (from +12.3% in December); the flash estimate was +10.9%.