Italian consumer price inflation rises in January

The Italian consumer price index rose in the month of January. According to the provisional data released by Istat, the headline inflation came in at 0.2 percent on a month-on-month basis, whereas it accelerated a bit to 0.6 percent year-on-year from 0.5 percent seen in the prior month.

The mild acceleration in the year-on-year rate was driven by the acceleration of prices of non-regulated energy products, of services related to transport and of processed food. The rise was partly countered by the widening of the fall in prices of regulated energy products and by the deceleration of prices of services related to recreation, including repaid and personal care.

Core inflation, excluding energy and unprocessed food came in at 0.8 percent, an acceleration from 0.6 percent. Meanwhile, core inflation excluding energy also came in at 0.8 percent, rising from 0.7 percent.

The sequential rise was mainly driven by the rise in prices of processed food including alcohol and unprocessed food, which recorded a rise of 1.4 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively. The rise countered the fall in services related to recreation, including repaid and personal care.

The annual rate of change of prices of goods came in at 0.1 percent, and that one of prices of services came in at 1 percent. The inflationary gap between services and goods remains positive and equal to +0.9 percentage points. Prices of grocery and unprocessed food rose 1.2 percent sequentially and 0.9 percent year-on-year.

Meanwhile, the preliminary estimates show that the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices dropped 1.7 percent sequentially, owing to the winter sales of clothing and footwear. The HICP rose 0.5 percent year-on-year.