Consumer prices (provisional data)

According to preliminary estimates, in August 2019 the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) increased by 0.5% on monthly basis and by 0.5% with respect to August 2018 (slightly up from +0.4%).

The dynamics of all items index was the result of a situation with very small differences with respect to July. It is just worth to report the slight speed-up of prices of food including alcohol (from +0.7% in July to +1.0%), mainly due to those of Processed food (from +0.1% to 0.6%), and of prices of Non-durable goods (from +0.2% to +0.7%).

The core inflation excluding energy and unprocessed food was +0.6% (up from +0.5%) and inflation excluding energy was +0.7% (up from +0.6%).

The increase on monthly basis of all items index was mainly due to prices of services related to transport (+4.5%), whose dynamics was affected by seasonal factors.

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +0.1% (up from -0.1% in the previous month) and that one of prices of services was +0.9% (down from +1.0% in July 2019). As a consequence, the inflationary gap between services and goods was still positive (+0.8 percentage points; +1.1 in the previous month).

Prices of grocery and unprocessed food increased by 0.4% on monthly basis and by 1.0% on annual basis (up from +0.6% in the previous month).

In August 2019, according to preliminary estimates, the rate of change of Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) was null compared with the previous month and equal to +0.5% with respect to August 2018 (up from +0.3% in July).