Azerbaijan, Baku, 25 April / Trend corr. S.Babayeva / In March 2008, the inflation rate in Azerbaijan totaled 23.37% against March 2007, Gubad Ibadoglu, head of the Economic Investigation Centre, stated in the conference on the project 'Development of methodology of alternative inflation' on 25 April.
According to Ibadoglu, the increase of consumer costs for foodstuffs during the first quarter reached 14.80% (15.9% - in Baku and 27.33% - in other regions), as well as 4.62% - for non-food consumer products (4.15% -in Baku and 5.17% -in other regions) and 2.57% - for services (2.60% - in Baku and 2.51% - in other regions).
Ibadoglu stated, in March, the prices mostly rose for foodstuffs - 5.34% (4.58% in Baku and 6.31% in the regions). Prices for non-foods averagely increased by 8.19% (1.49% in Baku and 7.51% in the regions) and the prices for services increased by some 0.99% (0.72% in Baku and 1.35% in the regions).
According to the State Committee of Azerbaijan, growth rate for foodstuff and service tariffs made up 3.1% in March compared to February 2008 and 16.5% - in the first quarter of 2008 compared to January-March 2007.
Prices for foodstuff, according to the State Committee, has risen by 4.5% in March, 0.8% - for nonfoods and 1.9% - for service tariffs.
Compared to the first quarter of 2007, the prices for foodstuff has risen by 21.8%, nonfoods - 9.5% and 10.8% - service tariffs.
The basis index of consumer prices made up 103.2% from January to February 2008, compared to 117.5% in previous year.