ROME, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Italy's average annual inflation rate in 2023 dropped to 5.7 percent from the previous year's 8.1 percent, the highest since Italy adopted the euro currency in 1999, the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) said Tuesday.

       ISTAT attributed the slowdown largely to a decrease in regulated and unregulated energy prices, which registered a year-on-year decline of 41.6 percent and 21.1 percent respectively by the end of 2023.

       Despite the dramatic decrease, the inflation rate was still far beyond Italy's long-term target of 2 percent.

       In the fourth quarter of last year, measures to counteract inflation were implemented to reduce consumer prices on a basket of necessities.

       The annual inflation rate of the last three months in 2023 plunged to an adjusted 1.7 percent, 0.7 percent, and 0.6 percent respectively, from the July-September quarter of 5.9 percent, 5.4 percent and 5.3 percent, according to the updated data ISTAT released Tuesday.