According to the Federal State Statistics Service, only during 1st and 2nd of July, the inflation rate grew up by 0.5%: the residential rate fee went up by 6.2%, electricity fee – by 4.7%, water and heating fees – by 2.4% and 3.2% respectively. Surface transportation fee went up by 4%. Vodka prices grew by 1.7%, chicken and sugar prices – by 0.7% and 0.5% respectively, according to the report of NEWSru.com with reference to newspaper Vedomosti.
But in June the inflation rate began to rise faster. As the Federal State Statistics Service reported, in June 2012 the price increase rate was 0.9% compared to 0.2% in June 2011. The reason of high rate of the inflation in June was the price growth of fruits and vegetables, as Oleg Zasov, director of the Department of Economic Development, explains. In general, food prices grew by 1.6% in June, but if fruit and vegetables were not taken into consideration, the food inflation was only 0.3%, according to the Federal State Statistics Service.
Prices for vegetables and fruits grew by 13.4% compared to May prices and they went up by 28.8% since the beginning of the year: in June the onion price grew by 39.6%, cabbage price – by 28.6%, potato price – by 24.4%, carrot price – by 21.9%, beet price – by 18.3%. Lemon price grew by 20.0%, and grapes, pear and orange prices – by 6.3-9.8%.
Andrej Belousov, minister of the Department of Economic Development, called the price rise of fruit and vegetables abnormal. The prices for fruit and vegetables have never grown so fast, and one of the reasons is that the prices for the last year harvest were quite low, meanwhile the stock came to an end in May, and the prices began to rise.
Another reason of the price growth is the drought in Russia’s south regions in May: the harvest of vegetables, especially cabbage, was less than it had been expected before, as Dmitry Rylko, CEO of the Institute of Agricultural Market Studies, told, but he also said that the situation is going to return to its usual state in the nearest future. Dmitry Rylko and Andrej Belousov believe that in July price growth of vegetables and fruit is going to slow down, and then, in August and September, prices may decline.
But while there is no domestic harvest, the import rate is quite high, and it went up because of the depreciation of the ruble, as Evgenij Gavrilenkov, Troika Dialog chief economist, said. According to the Federal State Statistics Service, the general inflation rate grew by 3.8% since the beginning of the year.
Source: www.fruitnews.ru