Italy February Inflation at 1.5%

Italy’s consumer price inflation accelerated more than expected in February, driven by higher cost of unprocessed food, preliminary estimate from the statistical office Istat showed Tuesday, RTT reported. Inflation rose to 1.5% in February from 1% in January. The rate was expected to rise to 1.3%. The final CCI data  is due on March 15. Unprocessed food prices surged 8.8% and prices of non-regulated energy products by 12.1% in February. Excluding energy and unprocessed food, core inflation was 0.6%, slightly up from 0.5% in the previous month. On a monthly basis, consumer prices gained 0.3%, the same pace of growth as seen in January but faster than the expected 0.1%.