October 6, 2015

In September, consumer prices rose 0.6% over the previous month, which was up from the 0.4% increase in August. The reading fell short of the 0.7% rise the market had expected. According to the Federal Statistics Office (Rosstat), the faster increase resulted from higher prices for food as well as for clothing and footwear.



Despite the monthly increase, annual inflation moderated from 15.8% in August to 15.7% in September, reversing direction after two months of increase. The result were welcome news for Russian monetary authorities, who delayed further interest rate cuts in its latest meeting in September.



That said, inflation remains well above the Central Bank’s 4.5% inflation target for this year. However, in its last monetary policy statement, the Bank said that it expects inflation to fall more rapidly than previously estimated and sees it falling to 12.5% at the end of this year and to 7.0% by mid-2016.

The Central bank expects inflation to end 2015 at a rate of between 12.0% and 13.0%. For 2016, the Central Bank sees inflation ending the year at a rate of between 5.5% and 6.5%. FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast panelists see inflation ending 2015 at 11.7%, which is up 0.2 percentage points from last month’s forecast. For 2016, participants expect inflation to ease to 7.2%.