MOSCOW, October 24 (Itar-Tass) — Russia’s inflation rate went up by 0.2 percent over a week from October 16 to October 22, the Federal State Statistics Service said in a regular report on Wednesday, adding that the indicator has grown by 5.7 percent since the beginning of the year and has increased by 0.5 since the beginning of the current month.
Touching upon last year’s indicators of the current period, the Statistics Service reaffirmed that the country’s inflation amounted by 4.9 percent by October 22 since the beginning of 2011. Besides, back then, the Statistics Service reported the 0.5-percent inflation in last year’s October, and the 0.2-percent inflation on October 16-22, 2011.
In the week from October 16 to October 22, 2012, the Statistics Service reported that the country’s average prices of wheat flour and sunflower oil increased by 1.5 percent and 1.2 percent respectively, the document wrote, adding that prices of miller grew by 0.9 percent, while prices of cottage cheese, vermicelli, cheese, eggs and bread went up by 0.3-0.5 percent.
Simultaneously, the prices of granulated sugar continued sliding down and decreased by 0.3-0.5 percent over the week, the statistics said, adding that prices of frozen fish and lamb went down by 0.3-0.5 percent, too.
In the period under review, the Statistics Service reported that the prices of fruit and vegetables decreased by 1.1 percent on average across the country. In particular, average prices of cabbage dropped by 2.6 percent, prices of onions and carrots went down by 2.2 percent and 1.3 percent respectively.
In the week from October 16 to October 22, the consumer prices of gasoline went up by 0.3 percent, while prices of diesel fuel increased by 0.6 percent on average, the Statistics Service said in its report.
The report was drafted on the basis of weekly monitoring of retail prices for 62 socially important goods and services, which the Federal State Statistics Service carried out in 271 Russian cities and towns.
Initially, Deputy Minister of Economic Development Andrei Klepach said earlier that the ministry expected the hike of consumer prices in October at the level of September – 0.5-0.6 percent. First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) Alexei Ulyukayev, in turn, stated that he considers this forecast as rather realistic.
In the meantime, later the ministry increased its projections to 0.6-0.7 percent in its monitoring of the social and economic situation in the country, which was published later.
In addition, the Ministry of Economic Development had raised the inflation forecast for the current year to seven percent. Initially, the official forecast of the country’s inflation rate was established at five to six percent, while several officials believe that the indicator may be more than the initial projection.
Besides, earlier the ministry forecasted the downward inflation trend for the country: it was projected at 4.5-5.5 percent for 2013, at 4.0-5.0 percent in 2014 and 4.0-5.0 percent in 2015.
In 2011, Russia’s inflation was the lowest over the past 20 years (6.1 percent).