ISTAT Istituto Nazionale di Statistica : Consumer prices

In December 2015 the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) held steady on monthly basis and rose by 0.1 with respect to December 2014 (the same annual rate of change observed in November 2015). The flash estimate was confirmed.

The average annual inflation rate for 2015, measured by NIC, slowed for the third consecutive year (+0.1%, from +0.2% registered in 2014), whereas excluding energy and unprocessed food, core inflation was the same as in 2014 (+0.7%).

The stability, in December, of the annual rate of change of All items index is due to the balancing of opposite thrusts: on the one hand to the speed-up of the annual growth of prices of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care (+0.9%, from +0.6% in the previous month) and to the further reduction of the decline of prices of Non-regulated energy products (-8.7%, from -11.2% in November 2015), on the other hand to the reversal trend of prices of Services related to transport (-1.7%, from +0.6% in November) and to the slowdown of the annual growth of prices of Unprocessed food (+2.3%, from +3.2% in the previous month).

Excluding energy and unprocessed food, core inflation was +0.6% (down from +0.7 registered in the previous month); excluding only energy, the inflation was +0.7% (0.1 percentage points lower than that of November 2015).

The stability, with respect to November 2015 of All items index was essentially due to the monthly decline of prices of Non-regulated energy products (-0.9%) and of Unprocessed food (-0.6%) balanced mainly by the monthly increase of prices of Durable goods (+0.5%), of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care and of Services related to transport (+0.3% for both types of products, on which seasonal factors had an impact).

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was -0.1% (from -0.2 observed in the previous month) and the annual rate of change of prices of Services was +0.3% (down from +0.6% in November 2015). As a consequence, the inflationary gap between Services and Goods decreased by 0.4 percentage points with respect to November 2015.

Prices of Grocery and unprocessed food decreased by 0.3% on monthly basis and rose by 0.9% on annual basis (down from +1.3% in November 2015).

In December 2015 the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) declined by 0.1% with respect to the previous month and increased by 0.1% with respect to December 2014 (from +0.2% in November 2015). The flash estimate was confirmed.

Core inflation measured by Italian HICP was 0.6%, down from +0.7% in November 2015. A decrease of two tenths of a percentage point was registered for the inflation calculated excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco (which was 0.4%, down from 0.6% in the previous month). Excluding energy, the inflation fell to 0.7% (from 0.8% in the previous month).

In December 2015, the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices at constant tax rates (HICP-CT) held steady compared with November 2015 and rose by 0.1 with respect to December 2014 (as the HICP). Therefore, as in the previous two months, the difference between HICP and HICP-CT growth rates - which incorporates the effects of changes in indirect taxes, occurred in the last twelve months - was zero. It should be noted that the difference between HICP and HICP-CT growth rates represents the upper limit of the impact of changes in indirect taxes occurred in the last twelve months on HICP, assuming their full and instantaneous pass-through on prices paid by consumers. The annual average rate of change of the Italian HICP-CT for 2015 held steady with respect 2014 year (it was -0.1% in 2014).

Date of next release: 3 February 2016

tags:consumer prices, consumptions, CPI, HICP, inflation, price, statistics flash theme:Pricesdocument typology:Press release