Preliminary estimates from Italy Statistics office ISTAT showed on Friday that the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) decreased by 2.0 percent month-over-month in January. HICP increased by 0.7 percent on an annual basis and compared to the 0.5 percent annual rate of rise observed in December.
The large decrease on monthly basis was mainly attributable to the winter sales of clothing and footwear which fell 22.1 percent compared with December 2016. Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) increased by 0.2 on monthly basis and by 0.9 percent with respect to January 2016, up from +0.5 percent in December 2016.
Core inflation measured by Italian HICP was +0.1 percent and the inflation excluding Energy, food, alcohol and tobacco was +0.3 percent, both down from +0.7 percent in December 2016; the inflation excluding Energy was +0.5 percent (0.4 percentage points lower than in the previous month).
Inflationary gap between Services and Goods turned negative to -0.6 percentage points for the first time in 46 months. Change of prices of Goods rose 1.2 percent y/y (up from +0.1 percent in December 2016) and the rate of change of prices of Services fell to +0.6 percent (down from +0.9 percent in the previous month).
