Italy's annual inflation hit 8.9% in September, the highest in nearly 37 years, up from 8.4% in August, according to preliminary estimates of the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) on Friday.
The figure is above the market forecast of 8.7%.
"The speed-up of the growth on annual basis of all-item index was mainly due to the prices of food including alcohol (from 10.1% to 11.5%), for both processed food including alcohol (from10.4% to 11.7%) and unprocessed food (from 9.8% to 11%)," ISTAT said.
Energy price inflation, while remaining high, fell slightly (from 44.9% to 44.5%), for both regulated energy products (47.9% to 47.7%) and non-regulated energy products (41.6% to 41.2%).
On a monthly basis, consumer prices went up 0.3%, picking up from an 0.8% jump in the previous month.
