Italian сonsumer prices rose slightly in January

According to the report from Istat, in January 2019 the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) increased by 0.1% on monthly basis and by 0.9% with respect to January 2018, down from +1.1% in the previous month, confirming the flash estimate.

The slowdown of the growth on annual basis of All items index was mainly due to prices of both Regulated (from +10.7% to +7.9%) and Non-regulated energy products (from +2.6% to +0.3%), partly mitigated by the acceleration of prices of Services related to transport (from +0.6% to +2.2%) and, to a lesser extent, of Unprocessed food (from +1.3% to +1.7%).

As a consequence, Core inflation excluding energy and unprocessed food was +0.5% (in deceleration from +0.6%) and inflation excluding energy was +0.6% (stable compared to the previous month).

In January 2019, the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) decreased by 1.7% compared with the previous month, mainly for the winter sales of Clothing and footwear (-21.2% compared with December 2018), which are not taken into account in the national index NIC. The HICP increased by +0.9%, in respect to January 2018 (it was +1.2% in December 2018), confirming the flash estimate.