Year-on-year inflation in Italy slowed to 7.6 percent in March, against 9.1 percent in February, thanks mainly to the slowdown in energy prices, announced the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat).
The slowdown in inflation is mainly due to the deceleration in the prices of non-regulated energy goods (from 40.8 to 18.9 percent) and the fall in regulated energy prices (from 16.4 to 20.3 percent), whose effects were only partially offset by acceleration in unprocessed food prices (from 8.7 to 9.1), housing-related services (from 3.3 to 3.5), cultural and personal care services (from 6.1 to 6.3) and tobacco (from 1.8 to 2.5).
Underlying inflation, which excludes energy and fresh food, remained stable at 6.3 percent, Istat explained in a statement with final March data.
The inflation estimate for 2023 is now 5 percent (in February, inflation forecast for 2023 was 5.4 percent), while the core inflation forecast is 4.1 percent.
The harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) – which measures the evolution of prices with the same method in all countries in the euro zone – increased by 0.8 percent in a chain and 8.1 percent compared to the same month of 2022.
