In February 2017, according to preliminary estimates, the Italian consumer price index for the whole nation (NIC) increased by 0.3% on monthly basis and by 1.5% with respect to February 2016, up from +1.0% in January 2017.

The increase, in February, of the annual rate of change of All items index was mainly due to the speed-up of the annual growth of prices of Unprocessed food (+8.8%, from +5.3% in January), of Non-regulated energy products (+12.1%, from +9.0% in the previous month) and of Services related to transport (+2.4%, from +1.0% in January).

Therefore, excluding energy and unprocessed food, core inflation was +0.6%, up from +0.5% in the previous month; excluding energy the inflation was +1.3%, from +0.8% in January.

The annual rate of change of prices of Goods was +1.9% (up from +1.2% in January) and the annual rate of change of prices of Services was +0.9% (up from +0.7% in the previous month). As a consequence, the negative inflationary gap between Services and Goods doubled with respect to January (-1.0 percentage points from -0.5 in January).