(ANSA) - ROME, MARCH 31 - "Inflation accelerates for the third consecutive month and, while remaining below one percentage point, returns to the levels of May 2019".
This was announced by Istat which recorded, in March, a growth in the index of Nic consumer prices, gross of tobacco, of 0.8% on an annual basis (from + 0.6% in February) and of 0.3% monthly subase, in the provisional data.
The "slight acceleration of inflation" is mainly due to non-regulated energy assets such as fuels which, "first time since February 2020", return to grow on an annual basis (from -3.6% to + 1.7%) and related services to transport (from + 1% to + 2.2%).
On the contrary, the prices of the so-called shopping cart "see their growth reset to zero" as they had not done since February 2018, when they recorded a drop of 0.6%.
The prices of food products, for home and personal care, in fact, record a zero trend change (from + 0.2% in February).
The harmonized index of consumer prices (Ipca), which is used at European level, instead recorded a 1.8% increase on a monthly basis, "mainly due to the end of the winter sales of clothing and footwear, of which Nicnon keeps account ", we read in the flash statistics, and of 0.6% on an annual basis (from + 1% in the previous month).
(HANDLE).