Azerbaijan, Baku, 9 July / corr. Trend I.Khalilova / According to the preliminary data, growth rate of inflation ratio reaches 20% because of price rise of services in Azerbaijan in the first half-year of 2008, Arif Veliyev, the chairman of the State Statistics Committee, said.
Service prices rose through sanatorium vouchers, repair of cars and houses. Even though food price was cut in June, cut is not expected on consumer prices.
The head of the State Committee considers that inflation ratio will change inconsiderably by the end of 2008.
"It is difficult to forecast inflation, because it will depend on change of prices at the consumer market, Veliyev said. However, unlike previous years, deflation, which is observed in summer period, has not been observed in 2008."
He considers that should deflation is observed in July or August, it will enable to reduce the inflation ratio.
Veliyev said that growth rate of inflation approach to forecasts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which stated it as 22% in Azerbaijan. Although the government's expectations were at the level of 13 or 14% for 2008, the Ministry of Economic Development intends to review them on the base of data provided for the first half-year.
The Antimonopoly service periodically holds monitoring to prevent false price rise and monopoly, which is a part of anti inflationary measures. If production is imported, the government cannot demand from entrepreneur to sell it at lower prices than its cost, as prices of these goods are formed at the world markets.
Growth rate of the inflation ratio made up 16.7% in 2007 and 19.2% in January to May 2008 as compared to 16.2% of the same period.
The exchange rate for US dollar was AZN 0.809 on 8 July.
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