Consumer prices (provisional data) - April 2023

According to preliminary estimates, in April 2023 the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was +0.5% on monthly basis and +8.3% on annual basis (from +7.6% in March).

The speed-up of the growth on annual basis of All-item index was mainly due to the prices of Non-regulated energy products (from +18.9% to +26.7%) and, to a lesser extent, it is also due to prices of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (from +6.3% to +6.7%) and of Services – miscellaneous (from +2.5% and +2.9%). Quite the opposite, the annual rate of change of the prices of Regulated energy products showed a wider decline than in March (from -20.3% to -26.4%), as well as the prices of Processed food including alcohol (from +15.3% to +14.7%), of Unprocessed food (form +9.1% to +8.4%), of Services related to housing (from +3.5% to +3.2%) and Services related to transport (from +6.3% to +6.0%).

The core inflation (All-items excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +6.3% and the All-items index excluding energy was +6.4% (both stable at the same level of the previous month).

As for Goods, the year on year growth rate was +10.6% (up from +9.7% in March) while for Services the annual rate of change was +4.7% (from +4.5% in the previous month). As a consequence, the negative inflationary gap between Services and Goods increases in absolute value (from -5.2 percentage points in March to -5.9).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by +0.8% on monthly basis and by 12.1% on annual basis (down from +12.6% in the previous month).

The month on month increase of NIC was mainly due to the prices of Non-regulated energy products and Services related to transport (+2.4% both), Processed food including alcohol (+1.1%), Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (+0.9%) and Non-durable goods (+0.6%); At the same time, the prices of Regulated energy products have decreased (-19.3%).

In April 2023, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) increased by 1.0% on monthly basis and by 8.8% on annual basis (from +8.1%). The different monthly dynamics between HICP and NIC was due to the end of the winter sales (not considered in the NIC index), that partly continued in March (as a result in April, the prices of Clothing and footwear increased by 4.8% on the previous month).