A woman shops at a supermarket in Milan on Sept. 5, 2012. Reuters/Stefano Rellandini
Italy's Consumer Price Index, or CPI, fell by 0.1 percent in February on a month-on-month basis, while increasing by 0.5 percent compared to the same month in 2013, data from Istat showed Thursday.
"The slowdown of inflation was mainly due to volatile components, such as unprocessed food and energy," according to a statement from Istat, which added: "Excluding these components, core inflation was stable at 1.0%. Also excluding only energy, the inflation was stable at the same value observed in January 2014 (+1.0%)."
The latest data were in line with a previous provisional reading and a consensus estimate from the Wall Street Journal.
"The decrease on monthly basis of All items index was mainly due to the decline of prices of Fresh vegetables and Fresh fruit (respectively -4.4% and -0.7% compared with January 2014) ‒ on which seasonal factors had an impact ‒ and to monthly decrease of prices of Non-regulated energy products (-0.9%); the monthly decrease of prices of Services related to communication (-0.7%) had a downward impact, too," the Istat statement said.
According to the Journal, domestic demand has not picked up enough momentum to help companies improve profit margins and make a significant contribution to the recovery process in the country.
