Consumer prices (provisional data)

According to preliminary estimates, in July 2020 the rate of change of the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was -0.1% on monthly basis and -0,3% with respect to July 2019 (-0.2% in June).

The third consecutive month of decrease on annual basis of All items index was mainly due to the confirmation of the drop (even if less large) of prices of both Regulated (from -14.1% to -12.0%) and Non-regulated energy products (from -11.2% to -9.0%) and its slight widening to the slowdown of prices of Food including alcohol (from + 2.3% in June to + 1.5%), mainly due to Unprocessed food (from +4.1% to +2.5%), and to the enlargement of the decrease of prices of Services related to transport (from -0.1% to -0.9%).

Core inflation (excluding energy and unprocessed food) was +0.5% (down from +0.7% in the previous month) and inflation excluding energy was +0.7% (down from +0.9% in the previous month).

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food decreased by 0.9% on monthly basis and increased by 1.5% on annual basis (down from +2.1% in the previous month).

In July 2020 the rate of change of the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) was -0.6% with respect to the previous month and +0.9% on annual basis (reversing the trend from -0.4% in June).

The clear turnaround of the HICP is due to the prices of Clothing and footwear whose growth on an annual basis sped up sharply from +0.4% to +18.7%. This dynamic was due to the postponed start of the summer sales (which NIC does not take into account) compared to last year (1st August in 2020 in most regions; 1st July in 2019) which determined a decrease on monthly basis of prices of Clothing and Footwear much less wide (-6.4%) than that of July 2019 (-20.9%) and a comparison between July 2020 with seasonal discounts only in a few regions and a July 2019 with the widespread sales throughout the national territory.

In July preliminary estimates of NIC and HICP have been carried out in the context of a further reduction of the seriousness of the Covid-19 crisis and the reopening of most of retail trade activities supplying goods and services. Even if still high, the amount of missing observations decreased. On pages 11-12 the methodological note describes the choices adopted to deal with the ongoing issues.