Zero inflation was observed in Russia, Denmark, and Great Britain in July. These data on inflation in Russia and foreign countries are available via Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service’s website. As for the European Union on the whole, deflation was noticed as the consumer prices index for the EU came to 99.6%.

Prices also declined in Norway, Turkey, and Ukraine, whereas the highest inflation rates were seen in Byelorussia (3.5%), the Republic of Korea (0.7%), and Kazakhstan (0.5%). Byelorussia was also No. 1 in terms of the speed of price growth, as prices have gone up by 41% since January.

In Russia, food prices decreased by 1.1%, while in the EU member states they went down by only 0.5%. The drop in the price of fruit and vegetables was more pronounced in Russia than in Europe, whereas the price of dairy products and bread remained the same (and increased by 0.3% to 0.5% in the EU).

SKB-Bank’s experts observe that, according to the Russian Federation Ministry for Economic Development’s forecast, inflation rate should keep within 7% to 8%. The inflation rate was rather high in January due to a dramatic price increase. However, then inflation started slowing down and was registered at zero in July 2011 – for the first time since a long while.