Daily Insight-January CPI higher MoM, but an improvement YoY

CPI in January climbed to 1.8% MoM, compared with 0.9% in the previous month. The largest contribution to this price increase was made by foodstuffs (up 3.3%), especially sugar (14.7%), dairy products (7.2%), and vegetables (14.3%); and fuels & energy (4.7%). January has traditionally been the month with one of the highest inflationary potentials. In addition, this January the prices in Ukraine have definitely felt the pressure from world sugar prices, which have plummeted due to low harvests in the main sugar exporters, and from the world oil markets, which have been trending upwards lately. Indeed, sugar producers\' prices nearly doubled within the past year (PPI equaled 90.5% YoY in January for sugar production). PPI for diary production rose by 32% compared with January 2009, and by 43-46% for coke and oil-processing products. For the industry as a whole, PPI escalated to 16.3% YoY in January, and to 1.9% on a MoM basis, with both indicators higher than those of December.