The National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) said that the consumer price index fell by 0.4% in March after an increase of 0.2% in February. Economists had expected a 0.3% decline. In annual terms, consumer price growth slowed to 7.6% from 9.1% in February. This was the weakest price increase since May 2022. Consensus estimates suggested CPI growth of 7.7% per annum.
The slowdown in annual inflation was mainly due to the deceleration of the prices of non-regulated energy goods (from +40.8% to +18.9%) and to the accentuated decline in those of regulated energy (from -16.4% to -20.3%). On the contrary, an upward contribution to the inflation rate came from the prices of unprocessed food (from +8.7% to +9.1%), services related to housing (from +3.3% to +3.5%), tobacco (from +1.8% to +2.5%) and those of services related to recreation including repair and personal care (from +6.1% to +6.3%).
The data also showed that the core CPI, which does not include prices for unprocessed food and energy, rose by 6.3% per annum, as in February.
The harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) - an indicator that allows to compare inflation in Italy with inflation in European countries - grew by 0.8% on a monthly basis and by 8.1% per annum.