Italy's annual inflation declines to 0.6 pct in February

ROME, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- The Italian inflation rate rose by 0.6 percent annually in February, preliminary estimates by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) showed on Wednesday.

It marked a moderate decline compared to 0.9 percent annual increase registered in January.

The slowdown in the annual growth of the all items index was "almost exclusively due to the deceleration of prices of unprocessed food, strengthened by that of energy and in particular of regulated energy products," according to ISTAT.

More specifically, unprocessed food prices fell by 3.2 percent (against a 0.4 percent rise in January), and regulated energy products prices grew by 5.2 percent (less than 6.4 percent last month), respectively.

Therefore, the statistical office said, "excluding energy and unprocessed food, core inflation was 0.7 percent, and inflation excluding energy was 0.3 percent."

Consumer prices on a monthly basis remained flat, rising by a small 0.1 percent compared to January.

The harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) in February fell by 0.3 percent against the previous month, but increased by 0.7 percent year-on-year (less than the 1.2 percent increase registered in January). Enditem