consumption increasingly declining. The Confcommercio indicator (ICC) has registered in January a decrease of 2,4% in tendential terms and a drop of 0,9% compared to the previous month of December. In terms of three-month moving average, the indicator corrected by seasonal factors - affirms Confcommercio - signals a further decline, given that it brought consumption back to the levels of the end of 2004.
In detail, the January consumption indicator trend reflects a 3,7% decrease in demand for services and a 2% decrease in spending on goods.
With regard to the single consumption functions, the first month of the year confirms the persistence of strong critical elements in almost all the aggregates. The most negative figure is still that relating to goods and services for mobility, the demand for which, also in January, recorded a double-digit decline (-10,1%).
Particularly significant reductions in consumption also affected food, beverages and tobacco (-3,9%), clothing and footwear (-3,9%), all segments which since 2010 have suffered from a significant reduction in demand.
In line with what already happened in 2012, only the total of goods and services for communications showed a positive change in the quantities purchased by households (+5,7% compared to the same month of 2012).
