Italian consumer price inflation eases marginally in August

Italian consumer price index rose in August. Sequentially, the headline inflation came in at 0.4 percent. On a year-on-year basis, the consumer price index also came in at 0.4 percent, the same as in July 2019. The flash estimate was 0.5 percent.

The stability of All items index was due to a situation with very small differences with respect to July. Non-durable goods saw a rise of 0.6 percent. The core inflation rate, which excludes energy and unprocessed food, came in at 0.5 percent and inflation excluding energy came in at 0.6 percent.

The rise on monthly basis was mainly driven by prices of services related to transport, whose dynamics was impacted by seasonal factors.

The annual pace of change of prices of goods was zero and that one of prices of services was 0.8 percent. As a consequence, the inflationary gap between services and goods was still positive. Prices of grocery and unprocessed food rose 0.1 percent sequentially and by 0.7 percent year-on-year.

The harmonized index of consumer prices was null in August compared with the prior month and came in at 0.5 percent year-on-year. This was an acceleration from 0.3 percent in July.