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Consumer prices reported up 2.4 percent in first 22 days of January

Consumer prices in Belarus increased by 2.4 percent in the first 22 days of January, reported the National Statistical Committee (Belstat).

Between January 1 and January 22, the highest increases occurred in the prices of cigarettes (26.1 percent), communications services (20 percent), train tickets for inter-regional routes (16.7 percent), beetroot (15.8 percent), cabbages (12.6 percent), carrots (11.7 percent), tomatoes (11.6 percent), cucumbers (10.4 percent), bananas (9.4 percent), health resort treatment services (8.4 percent), bulb onions (7.4 percent), train tickets for international routes (7.2 percent), gasoline (5.2 percent), potatoes (4.7 percent), vodka (4.6 percent), apples (3.4 percent), semolina (2.9 percent), wheat flour (2.8 percent), and low-fat curds, pasta and beer (two to 2.5 percent).

Frozen mackerel and code decreased in price by 1.9 percent, buckwheat by one percent, footwear by 0.4 percent, clothes by 0.2 percent, and vegetable oil, except olive oil, by 0.1 percent, Belstat said.

The government has set a 12-percent inflation target for 2013.

According to Belstat, consumer prices rose by 21.8 percent last year, whereas the government had projected an increase of 19 to 22 percent. //BelaPAN