Consumer prices - July 2023

In July 2023 the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was null compared with the previous month and +5.9% on annual basis (from +6.4%); the flash estimate was +6.0%.

The slow down of the annual inflation rate was mainly due to the prices of Services related to transport (from +4.7% to +2.4%), of Non-regulated energy products (from +8.4% to +7.0%) of Processed food including alcohol (from +11.5% to +10.5%) and, to a lesser extent, of Non energy industrial goods (from +4.8% to +4.5%) and of Regulated energy products (from -29.0% to -30.3%). At the opposite, an upward contribution to the inflation rate came from the prices of Unprocessed food (from +9.4% to +10.4%) and of Services related to housing (from +3.5% to +3.6%).

The core inflation (All-items excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +5.2% (down from +5.6% in June) and the All-items index excluding energy was +5.5% (from +5.8% in previous month).

As for Goods, the year on year grotwth rate was +7.0% (down from +7.5% in June) while for Services the annual rate of change was +4.1% (from +4.5%). As a consequence, the negative inflationary gap between Services and Goods decreases in absolute value (from -3.0 percentage points in June to -2.9).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by 0.1% on monthly basis and by 10.2% on annual basis (down from +10.5% in the previous month).

The zero increase on monthly basis was due to the prices of Processed food including alcohol (+0.6%), of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care and of Services related to transport (+0.4% both, also due to seasonal factors), of Non-durable goods and Services miscellaneous (+0.3% both); whose growth was offset by the decrease of prices of Regulated energy products (-1.8%), of Non-regulated energy products (-1.3%), of Unprocessed food (-0.8%) and of Tobacco (-0.6%).

In July 2023 the Italian harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) decreased by 1.6% on monthly basis (due to the summer sales not considered by NIC) and increased by 6.3% on annual basis (down from +6.7% in the previous month); the flash estimate was +6.4%.