23/2/2011 00:00:00
Inflation reached its highest level since 2008. This is what emerges from the monthly survey of consumer prices carried out by Istat. In January, the NIC index, including tobacco, reports an increase of 0.4% compared to December 2010 and 2.1% over the same month last year (it was +1.9% December 2010). The final estimate confirms the provisional one. The acquired inflation for 2011 is at 1, 2%. Core inflation, calculated net of energy goods and fresh food, is equal to 1.4%, unchanged from that calculated in December. On the trend, the variation in the prices of goods rose to 2.5% (from 2.1% in December 2010), while for services the dynamic trend of price falls to 1.5% (it was +1.6 % in December). The acceleration in inflation recorded in January is affected by pressure on prices of goods, especially of non-regulated energy goods and unprocessed food, whose effects are only partially mitigated by the slight slowdown in growth on an annual basis of the price for services. The Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) decreased by 1.6% from the previous month and increased by 1.9% on the trend. The difference between the preliminary estimate of the HICP index (+2.4%) and the final (+1.9%) in January is due to the fact that, with the new method of calculating indices of seasonal products (introduced in January 2011 in the implementation of Regulation (EC) No 330/2009) is strongly affected by the IPCA index of the variability related to special sales (not covered in the FOI and NIC indexes). The difference between provisional and final data is mainly due to the division "Clothing and footwear", for which the special sales, highly variable in the territory, have produced a reduction in prices higher than in the provisional estimate. The national index (CPI) excluding tobacco marks an increase of 0.4% over the previous month and 2.2% compared to January 2010.
