Regulars
THE Vivid INDEX
November 2004
Negative inflation for the month of October, and a huge decrease in the annual inflation rate: we would be aggressively hyping this news if we did not know beforehand of the reasons for the blip down in inflation. Namely that someone, somewhere bought far too many bananas and they could be had for rock-bottom prices the last time we were in Piata Domenii, and that the price of Carpati cigarettes seems yet to find an equilibrium ñ it's up one week and down the next. All we can say is that the annual figure seems to be continuing to move in the right direction. We still marvel at the low price of fresh market food and the fact that Coke has not hiked its prices for over a year now.
| Price | ||||
| Item | April 1999 | Year ago | October | November |
| Salami de Sibiu (1 kg, Mega Image) | 92,000 | 335,100 | 380,000 | 399,000 |
| Bananas (1 kg, Piata Amzei) | 18,000 | 30,000 | 35,000 | 29,000 |
| Unleaded petrol ( 1 litre, Agip) | 7,800 | 23,900 | 29,000 | 30,650 |
| Rail ticket (Bucharest-Brasov, Rapid, first class) | 70,000 | 287,000 | 344,000 | 344,000 |
| Coca Cola (330 ml, Mega Image) | 4,800 | 18,400 | 18,400 | 18,400 |
| 1 Libertatea | 1,700 | 4,000 | 4,000 | 4,000 |
| 1 Big Mac | 18,000 | 57,000 | 63,000 | 65,000 |
| 1 Egg (Piata Amzei) | 1,000 | 4,600 | 3,700 | 3,700 |
| Cigarettes (Carpati, Ion Slatineanu shop) | 4,000 | 16,000 | 21,000 | 18,000 |
| Int. telephone call (1 min., daytime, Europe) | 8,900 | 10,760 | 9,840 | 9,840 |
Monthly nominal change in prices, October 2004: - 1.9 per cent
(September was 3.6 per cent)
October 2004 government figure: 1.2 per cent
(September was 0.9 per cent)
Vivid Index, October, year-on-year: 6.7 per cent
(September was 17.2 per cent)
Government figure, October, year-on-year: 10.8 per cent
(September was 11.1 per cent)
2003 inflation: 14.1 per cent
2002 inflation: 17.8 per cent
2004 target: 9.0 per cent