VENICE (ITALPRESS) – Since the beginning of the conflict in the Persian Gulf (28 February 2026), inflation has increased by 4.4%, with peaks of +5.4% in Como, +5.1 in Siena and Lucca and + 4.6 in Florence, Trieste, Verona, Vicenza and Syracuse. The most interested voices from the ricari were the electricity and gas bills with +28.7%, the use of personal means of transport with +13.8 and passenger transport services with +9, the equipment for information and communication (cellular, computer, tablet, TV, etc.) with +8.3 and accommodation services (hotels, holiday villages, hostels, etc.) with +6,1%. The only items that in the last 8 months have recorded a negative change were the purchases of vehicles with -0.1%, alcoholic drinks with -1,3, household appliances with -2,2 and holiday packages with -8,1. In other words, the effects of the war conflict have contributed decisively to the increase of inflation, thanks, in particular, to the rise of light, gas, fuels, consumer electronics and accommodation in our country. To say this is the Study Office of the CGIA that has realized this processing on Istat data. If, moreover, the observation focuses on the first 50 subvoices that have undergone the major price rises in these first 8 months of war between USA and Iran, to drive the ranking are the unregistered recording media (cassettes, videocassettes, DVD, CD, etc.). These products have seen the average price of 64.8% sketching upwards.
They follow the heating oil and the kerosene for domestic use with +44,3, the heating gas of +39,2, the diesel of +32, the electricity of 24.9, the air transport of passengers of 24.5 and the gasoline of 22.7. At regional level the most important ricari interested Tuscany with +4.2%. They follow Sardinia and Veneto with +4&. Regions, these just listed, which have in tourism one of the strengths of their economy have seen increase the prices of accommodation respectively of 36,1, 17.6 and, on the island, even of 44%. Just outside the regional podium we see Lazio and Sicily with +3.9% and Liguria and Friuli Venezia Giulia with 3.8. The region less affected by inflationary pressure was Trentino Alto Adige with +1.8%. Among the 80 provincial capital municipalities that Istat monthly monitors, in these first 7 months of war in the Gulf the city that suffered the most important inflationary flame was Como with +5.4 %. Follow Siena and Lucca with +5,1, Florence, Trieste, Verona, Vicenza and Syracuse with +4.6, Venice with +4.5 and Pisa with +4.4. The less interested municipalities, however, were Trento with +1.1%, Belluno with +0.9 and Milan with +0.8. It is likely to believe that in these last three cities there have been much more content than others, since in February the consumer price index in these urban realities was among the highest in the country.
In recent months the prices have resumed to run and to drive its growth were mainly energy goods: electricity, gas, gas and diesel. Although the government intervened with a measure earlier this week, with the arrival of winter the weight of bills could be felt importantly, both for families and for small businesses. The most vulnerable groups and economic activities are at risk, those with fewer margins to absorb waste. The problem may not stop to energy. If the trend in the last three months should continue, food products may also suffer very significant increases. And to pay the highest price would be low-income families: for them essential expenses, such as food, heating and lighting, weigh more on the household budget since they cannot be held more than that. If the conflict does not end in reasonably short time and electricity and gas prices remain so high, even many small energy-intensive economic activities could suffer an increase in fixed costs hardly absorbable through a retouching of the lists. For example, we refer to the gaseous sectors, i.e. the high consumption of gases working in the fields of chemistry, paper, glass, ceramics, cement/laterizi and steel.
On the same level, companies operating in the electricity sector, i.e. those with high electricity consumption. We point out, in particular, the aluminium, plastic, rubber, textile, food and digital industry. When prices run, salaries and pensions remain firm and the result has a precise name: loss of purchasing power. With the same number in your pocket, today you buy less than yesterday. Families know it well, and react as they have always done in difficult times: they tighten the belt. The danger is precisely this: with too much inflation we risk seeing the consumption collapse. It begins from the superfluous, or from what such appears. No pizza on Saturday night, the bathroom to remake remains as it is, the new dress awaits next season, the door that does not close well will be adjusted later. Small domestic renunciations, which sum up tell a cautious and worried country. But every postponed expense has a recipient. Behind that renounce to eat pizza there is a place that will have semi-empty tables. Behind that bathroom there is the work of a plumber, behind that door that of a carpenter, behind that dress the hand of a tailor. They are artisans, traders, restaurateurs who live in the consumption of families, those same families that today, by necessity, could buy less. If customers decrease, the shops work less, the recesses are thinned, the margins are reduced to put the task in difficulty.
It is a vicious circle that feeds itself: who buys has less to spend, who sells has less to cash, and also who sells, in turn, ends up reducing their consumption. Finally, we recall that those of families generate about 60 percent of the national GDP. This is why inflation is not only a number in statistics, an extra or less decimal in official newsletters. It is a force that bites on two fronts: empty the wallet of those who buy and thin the turnover of those who offer goods and services, and so, silently, impoverishes the country. The dear “exploded” life in recent months has a precise cause: the surge in energy prices. And it is on this front that we must act in order to attenuate the effects, putting a brake on gas, electricity and fuels. What? Relating to the European level the measure already adopted between February 2023 and January 2025: the roof at the gas price throughout the EU. So, with a maximum threshold fixed at 180 Euros at the Megawattora, the cost of raw material was sheltered from speculations and bills could come down significantly. For fuels the road is different. Brussels should allow individual States to cut excise duties to reduce the price to the pump, giving greater flexibility in the calculation of public accounts. With the squares of Europe full of protesters against the caravan, it is difficult to understand what Brussels is waiting for to intervene.
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
