Consumer prices - October 2023

In October 2023 the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was -0.2% on monthly basis and +1.7% on annual basis (from +5.3% in September); the flash estimate was +1.8%.

The slowdown of the annual inflation rate was due to the prices of Non-regulated energy products (from +7.6% to -17.7%), of regulated energy products (from -27.9% to -31.7%) and, to a lesser extent, of unprocessed food (from +7.7% to +4.9%) and of processed food including alcohol (from +8.9% to +7.3%). At the opposite, an upward contribution to the inflation rate came from the prices of services related to housing (from +3.7% to +4.0%) and of Services related to transport (from +3.8% to +4.0%).

The core inflation (all-items excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +4.2% (down from +4.6 % in September) and the all-items index excluding energy was +4.2% (from +4.8% in the previous month).

As for goods, the year on year growth rate was zero (from +6.0%) while for services the annual rate of change remains stable at +4.1%. As a consequence, the inflationary gap between services and goods becomes positive in absolute value (from to -1.9 percentage points in September to +4.1).

Prices of grocery and unprocessed food decreased by 0.1% on monthly basis and increased by +6.1% on annual basis (down from +8.1% in the previous month).

The month on month decrease of NIC was mainly due to the prices of Non-regulated energy products(-1.9%), of services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (-0.9%) and of services related to transport (-0.6%). At the same time, the prices of regulated energy products (+13.8%) and services related to housing (+0.4%) have increased.

In October 2023 the Italian harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) increased by 0.1% on monthly basis and by 1.8% on annual basis (down from +5.6% in the previous month); the flash estimate was +1.9%.