OREANDA-NEWS. February 18, 2010. The State Statistics Committee informs that this January consumer inflation in Azerbaijan made up 1.8% against January 2009 (year-on-year) with 0.5% inflation versus last December.

Government’s forecasts on the occasion of inflation for 2010 differ strongly.

The official forecast says of inflation of no more than 3%, but some “apocryphal” predictions admit inflation surge up to 5-7%.

In 2009 country’s consumer inflation reached 1.5% against 2008 and last December 0.8% versus November 2009.

Growth of wholesale industrial price index in January 2010 totaled 8.8% versus December and even 75.7% against January 2009 (year-on-year). Such a surge is linked with rise in prices in oil and gas sector by 12.1% against December and 2.09 fold year-on-year, i.e. there is not speech about “inflation of costs” as a basis for surge of consumer inflation.

In December 2009 rise of wholesale price index was 0.3% against November and year-on-year decline of wholesale prices for 2009 versus 2008 made up 19.2%.

This January, food prices increased by 0.6% against last December and declined by 1% year-on-year. Last December these prices grew by 1.4% versus November 2009 and for entire 2009 decreased by 1.5% against the 2008 index.

Prices for farm products rose in January 2010 by 0.5% against December 2009, but dropped by 4.3% year-on-year. In December their growth versus last November was 1%, and for whole 2009 it reached 0.3% against the 2008 figure.

Since June 2009 the SSC ceased publishing data on money circulation.