10 Feb 2010 16:23

Russian inflation accelerates to 0.2% in Feb, 1.9% YTD

MOSCOW. Feb 10 (Interfax) - Inflation in Russia accelerated to 0.2% in the week February 2-8, from 0.1% in the week January 26-February 1, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said.

Inflation was 1.9% in the year to date.

Inflation was 0.5% in the first week of February last year and 1.7% that month as a whole. It was 2.9% for January 1-February 8, 2009.

The past week saw price rises of 0.9%-1.2% for sugar, cheese and buckwheat and 0.4%-0.6% for fish, tvorog, milk, butter and vodka.

Pork, pasta and flour went down 0.1%-0.5%.

Fruit and vegetables averaged up 1.5%, with increase of 4.3% for onion, 3.9% for cabbage and 2.9% for carrot.

Gasoline prices rose 0.1% and diesel rose 0.5% in price.

Trolleybus fares, central heating and hot water went up 0.7%-1.1%.

Consumer prices rose 1.6% in January this year, compared with growth of 2.4% in January last year, so annual inflation had already slowed to 7.8% as of February 8 this year.

Inflation will be 8.4% in 2010, analysts said in their most recent consensus forecast for Interfax. The government forecasts 6.5%-7.5%, but "it might be more appropriate to talk about closer to 7% than 6.5% at the moment," Andrei Klepach, a deputy economic development minister, said last week.