Consumer prices (provisional)

According to preliminary estimates, in June 2021 the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was +0.1% on monthly basis and +1.3% on annual basis (the same as the previous month).

The stable growth on annual basis of all-item index was still mainly due to the prices of both regulated energy products (that slightly sped up from +16.8% to +16.9%) and non-regulated ones (from 12.6% to 12.8%). Then prices of processed food including alcohol zeroed their decrease (from -1.1%) and those of services related to recreation, including repair and personal care went from null to +0.9%: these dynamics were offset by prices of unprocessed food (from -0.4% to -1.0%) and of services related to transport (from -0.2% to -1.4%).

Both core inflation (excluding energy and unprocessed food) and inflation excluding energy were +0.3% (up from +0.2% in the previous month).

The increase on monthly basis was due to the prices of Services related to transport (+0.9%), of non-regulated energy products (+0.7%), of processed food including alcohol and of services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (both +0.6%), whose growth was only partially offset by the decrease of prices of unprocessed food (-1.3%) and of services related to communication (-0.5%).

The rate of change of prices of grocery and unprocessed food was zero on monthly basis and -0.4% on annual basis (from -0.9% in the previous month).

According to preliminary estimates, in June 2021 the rate of change of the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) was +0.2% on monthly basis and +1.3% on annual basis (from +1.2% in May).

On pages 11-12 the methodological note describes the choices adopted to deal with the ongoing issues deriving from Covid-19 crisis.