Specialists say that it is phenomenal that while inflation in Armenia is higher than in, say, Europe, prices for consumer goods here do not grow as much as they do in other parts of the world.

The wild pre-New Year retail shopping spree last month gave way to relative tranquility in January. Armenians suffering the syndrome of extravagant feast tables at the Year’s biggest holiday again spent lavishly what they had saved up for the occasion, paying no heed even to the price hikes for goods typical of the days and even weeks leading to the January holiday.

This perhaps led to the fact that 3.4 percent of Armenia’s annual inflation of 6.5 percent was contributed by December (according to official data, in January-November 2009, inflation made only 3.1 percent).

No sharp inflation was observed on international markets, for example in the European Union, where inflation was at about 1.5 percent. (Moreover, in conditions of the continuing economic crisis economies were trying to exclude deflation risks.)

In fact, even the stepped up pre-New Year monitoring conducted by the State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition (SCPEC) until December 31, which aimed at preventing expected price increases, did not produce expected results (even though SCPEC argues to the contrary).

SCPEC press secretary Armine Udumyan told ArmeniaNow that that the final results of the monitoring have not been prepared yet, but, according to a preliminary summary, the commission did not observe an abrupt rise in prices.

“There were no essential price changes on the threshold of the New Year to raise suspicions of violation of competition rules,” said Udumyan.

And despite the December inflation, prices for some products in Armenia did not rise as much as they did in the rest of the world.

The prices for basic foodstuffs (wheat, dairy products, meat, sugar and cooking oils) registered stable growth on the international market in 2009. Experts of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) were talking about this still at the end of last year.

Rising by another 11 points, the FAO Food Price Index reached the highest level for 2009 in November – 168 points. Sugar registered the biggest price increase on the international market last year – by 200 percent, milk and dairy products (butter, cheese) – by 70 percent, rice – by 20 percent.

Prices for these products in Armenia grew to a much lesser extent.

According to the data reported by the National Statistical Service, granulated sugar, the price of which in the world has grown by 200 percent, in Armenia became expensive by only 79 drams (about 20 cents) or 31 percent. The price of rice in Armenia during last year went up by 51 drams (about 13 cents) or 8 percent, and the price of butter increased by 77 drams (about 20 cents) or 2 percent.

(One dollar bought about 375 drams at exchange offices in central Yerevan on Wednesday morning.)