Italy: Inflation up to 1.5% in January says ISTAT

Rome: Italy’s annual inflation rate rose to 1.5% in January, up from 1.3% in December, according to provisional data released by ISTAT on Monday.

The national statistics agency said its consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) was up by 0.6% in January in month-on-month terms.

The increase of the growth on an annual basis of the all-item index was mainly due to the prices of regulated energy products (from +12.7% to +27.8%), of non-regulated energy products (from -4.2% to -3.0%) and, to a lesser extent, of processed foods including alcohol (from +1.7% to +2.0%), the national statistics agency said.

The prices of services related to transport (from +3.6% to +2.5%) and of communication services (from +1.2% to +0.9%) slowed down, according to the bureau’s provisional data.

Core inflation in January (excluding energy and unprocessed food) was stable at +1.8% and inflation excluding energy was +1.8% (from +1.7%), ISTAT said.