Weekly inflation in Russia still 0.1%, annual steady - Rosstat
MOSCOW. May 18 (Interfax) - Inflation in Russia was again 0.1% in the week May 11-16, a shorter week than usual due to the May 9 state holiday the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said.
Inflation was 0.1% for the period May 5-10, also a shorter week, and inflation for the period April 26-May 4, a longer period than usual due to the May 1 holiday, was 0.2%. But average daily price growth for the first four days of May was 0.017%, and if inflation had been measured for the usual seven days, average daily growth would have been 0.12%, which Rosstat would have rounded to 0.1%.
Average daily price growth slowed to 0.015% as of May 16, from 0.018% on May 10. This corresponds with average daily price growth for April, when inflation was 0.4% for the month as a whole, and is slightly higher than the 0.011% seen in May 2015, when inflation for the month was also 0.4%.
Prices rose 0.2% between May 1 and 16 this year and 2.8% since the start of 2016.
They rose 0.2% for the first 16 days of May last year, also, so in annual terms inflation stayed at roughly the same level as at the end of April this year, when it was 7.3%.
Inflation in annual terms is more than 3.5 percentage points below the Central Bank's key lending rate, which is 11% pa.
Extrapolating average daily price growth of 0.015% for the first few half of May to the month as a whole suggests May inflation will be between 0.4% and 0.5%, just above the 0.4% seen in April 2016 and 0.4% for May 2015.
The Economic Development Ministry has said it expects inflation for this month will be 0.4-0.5% and that annual inflation would be 7.3-7.5% at the end of the month.
In the period May 11-16, fruit and vegetables averaged down 0.3% in price, drops of 5.6% for cucumbers and 4.8% for tomatoes, but growth of 4.3% for onion, 3.3% for potatoes, 2.1% for carrots and 1.6% for cabbage.
The price of buckwheat grew 1.8% and fish, sunflower oil, tea, hard and soft candies went up 0.2%-0.4%, while prices fell 2.4% for eggs, 0.5% for mutton and 0.2%-0.3% for pork, granulated sugar, flour, rice and millet.
Gasoline and diesel prices were practically unchanged.
