Italian headline inflation slows down year-on-year in May on services pries

The Italian consumer price index was null on a sequential basis in May. On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation eased to 0.8 percent from April’s 1.1 percent.

The deceleration of the growth on annual basis of All items index was driven by prices of Services related to transport, of Non-regulated energy products and, to a lesser extent, of Services related to recreation, including repair and personal care, showed ISTAT.

The core rate, which strips energy and unprocessed food eased to 0.4 percent from April’s 0.6 percent. Inflation excluding energy came in at 0.5 percent, a slowdown from 0.7 percent.

Meanwhile, the no growth on a sequential basis was due to opposite dynamics; in particular, on one side to prices of unprocessed food that rose 1.8 percent and of non-regulated energy products that rose 0.8 percent, and on the other side to prices of Services related to transport that fell 0.9 percent and of services related to communications that dropped 0.5 percent.

Prices of goods and services eased on a year-on-year basis to 0.8 percent each. Therefore, the inflationary gap between services and goods was zero.

The harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) rose 0.1 percent on monthly basis and came in at 0.9 percent on a year-on-year basis, affirming the flash estimate.

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