Italy: consumer prices rose 0.2% in February

According to preliminary estimates from Istat, in February 2019 the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) increased by 0.2% on monthly basis and by 1.1% with respect to February 2018, up from +0.9% in the previous month.

The acceleration of the growth on annual basis of All items index was mainly due to prices of food, both Processed including alcohol (from zero variation to +1.2%) or Unprocessed (from +1.7% to +3.7%) and Tobacco (from +2.9% to +4.5%), and, to a lesser extent, of Non-regulated energy products (from +0.3% to +0.8%). The slowdown of prices of Services related to transport (from +2.2% to +0.9%) and the wider decrease of prices of Services related to communication (from -2.0% to -4.9%) mitigated this acceleration.

The core inflation excluding energy and unprocessed food was +0.5% (stable compared to the previous month) and inflation excluding energy was +0.8% (in acceleration from +0.6%).

In February 2019, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) decreased by 0,2% on monthly basis, mainly due to further winter sales of Clothing and footwear (-6.0% compared with January 2019), which are not taken into account in the national index NIC. The HICP increased by +1.2% with respect to February 2018 (+0.9% in the previous month).