Consumer prices (provisional data) - August 2024

According to preliminary estimates, in August 2024 the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) increased by 0.2% on monthly basis and by 1.1% on annual basis (from +1.3% in July 2024).

The decrease of the growth on annual basis of All-item index was mainly due to the prices of Non-regulated energy products (from -6.0% to -8.6%), of Durable goods (from -1.2% to -1.8%) and of Services related to housing (from +2.7% to +2.5%); on the contrary, the prices of Regulated energy products (from +11.7% to +14.0%), of Services related to transport (from +2.2% to +2.9%) and of Processed food including alcohol (from +1.6% to +1.8%) slowed down.

In August 2024, core inflation (excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +2.0% (from +1.9% in the previous month) and inflation excluding energy was +1.9% (from +1.8%).

As for Goods, the year on year growth rate was -0.5% (from -0.1% in July) and for Services the annual rate of change was +3.2% (from +3.0%). As a consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods increased (from +3.1 percentage points in July to +3.7).

The prices of Grocery and unprocessed food increased by 0.3 on monthly basis and by 0.9% on annual basis (up from +0.7% in the previous month).

The increase on monthly basis was mainly due to the prices of Regulated energy products (+3.2%), of Services related to transport (+1.9%) and of Processed food (including alcohol and tobacco) (+0.9%); on the other hand the prices of Non-regulated energy products (-1.0%) and of Unprocessed foods (-0.6%) decreased.

In August 2024 the rate of change of the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) decreased by 0.1 on monthly basis (due to the summer sales not considered by NIC) and increased by 1.3% on annual basis (from +1.6% in July).