Producer prices decreased by 2.3%. Weight drop in energy

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In May 2023, as reported by Istat, industrial production prices fell by 2.3% month-over-month and by 4.3% year-on-year.

In the domestic market, prices decreased by 3.1% compared to April and by 6.8% year-on-year (from -3.5% in the previous month). Excluding the energy sector, prices fell 0.5% m/m and registered a slow growth trend (+2.8%, from +4.4% in April).

In the foreign market, prices remain stable on a monthly basis (-0.2% eurozone, +0.2% outside the eurozone) and show a year-on-year increase of 2.1% (+1.3% eurozone, +2.7% non-eurozone).

In the March-May quarter of 2023, compared to the previous quarter, industrial production prices decreased by 8.5%. The negative economic contraction is very large in the domestic market (-11.2%), modest in the foreign market (-0.1%). In May 2023, among manufacturing activities, the most pronounced increases related to computers, electronic and optical products (+7.1% in eurozone, +11.6% in non-eurozone), textile industries, apparel, leather and accessories (+8.5% domestic market) , food, beverage and tobacco industries (+7.3% domestic market, +7.5% eurozone, +8.2% outside the eurozone) and transportation (+7 0.9% outside the eurozone). Downward trends are observed in all three markets of coke and refined petroleum products (-15.8% domestic market, -2.8% eurozone, -17.7% outside eurozone) and mining and metal products manufacturing (-6.3% domestic, -11.7)% eurozone, – 9.1% outside the euro area). In the domestic market, the downward trend extends to the prices of extractive activities (-45.6%) and electricity and gas supplies (-27.4%).

Manufacturing prices are down an average of 0.6% but are still growing year-on-year by more than 1 percentage point, due to the impact of broad advances in almost all sectors except metallurgy. Anyway, the landslide compared to the previous data is clearly visible.