Italian headline inflation remains stable sequentially in October, up 1.6 pct year-on-year

Italian headline inflation was stable in October on a sequential basis. According to Istat, the consumer price inflation came in at 1.6 percent year-on-year, affirming the flash estimate. The acceleration of inflation was driven prices of regulated energy products and of services, only partly countered by prices of unprocessed food and of services related to transport that decelerated their growth respectively from 2.4 percent to 0.8 percent and from 2.5 percent to 1.8 percent. Core rate, which excludes energy and unprocessed food, came in at 0.7 percent. Meanwhile, inflation excluding energy came in at 0.8 percent.

The zero variation on monthly basis of All items index was because of prices of regulated energy products and to a lesser extent to prices of non-regulated energy products, whose increase was countered by fall in prices of services related to transport and of services related to recreation, including repair and personal care, mainly because of seasonal factors.

The pace of change of Italy’s harmonized index of consumer prices rose 0.2 percent sequentially and 1.7 percent year-on-year in October, affirming the flash estimate.

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