(Reuters) - Italian industrial producer prices saw a marked decline in January, slipping back to levels seen in the summer of 2021 in yearly terms due to a decline in energy prices.
National statistics bureau ISTAT said on Friday that prices at factory gates fell 7.5% month-on-month in January, having risen 2.9% in December. Compared with the same month a year earlier prices were up 11.1% in January, easing from a 31.7% leap in December.
"The exceptional monthly decline and the sharp slowdown of the yearly growth of producer prices in the industrial sector ... are mainly due to the strong decrease of retail prices on internal energy and gas markets, weighed down by a fall in natural gas prices," ISTAT said in a note.
Excluding the energy component, prices in the internal market increased 0.5% on a monthly basis, compared with a 9.8% rise in the same month last year.
In the three months from November to the end of January, industrial producer prices grew 0.4% from the previous quarter.