The Extended Consumer Price Index-15 (IPCA-15) has changed by 0.29% in December, with a rate below that of November. As a consequence, IPCA-E (Special Extended Consumer Price Index) closed the year at 6.10%, significantly above the figure in 2007. For the calculation of IPCA-15, prices were collected from November 14 to December 10 and compared to those in effect from October 14 and November 13. The indicator refers to families with income ranging from 1 to 40 minimum wages and encompasses the metropolitan areas of Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Recife, São Paulo, Belém, Fortaleza, Salvador and Curitiba, besides Brasília and Goiânia. The methodology used is the same as that of IPCA; the difference lies in the period of data collection. IPCA-E is IPCA-15 accumulated in periods.

The reduction of IPCA-15 in December occurred mainly due to the severe deceleration of food prices, which, from 0.90% in November, fell to 0.34% in December, with contribution of 0.08 percentage points versus the 0.20 of the previous month.

The prices of most products either had a lower rhythm of rise or fell. “Carioca” beans, which had fallen by 2.54% in November, became even cheaper in December, falling by 21.15%; black beans, on the other hand, got 7.65% more expensive in November, and fell 4.71% in December.

Tomatoes, the price of which rose by 45.90% versus 3.38% in November, accounted for 0.08 percentage points of contribution in December, being the major individual contribution, and replaced meat, which, in the previous month, had risen by 4.52%, with contribution of 0.20 percentage points. The rate of meat, however, fell to 0.61% in December.

The same occurred to non-food products, the rate of which (0.28%) was also below the 0.37% of the previous month. Cleaning articles (from 0.91% to 0.79%), rents (from 0.84% to 0.56%), gasoline (from 0.33% to -0.12%), alcohol (from 0.75% to -0.29%) and used cars (from -1.10% to -2.57%) are examples of items which influenced the reduction of rate from one month to the other.

Among the indexes by area, the highest one was that of Brasília (0.82%), where gasoline rose by 0.87% and alcohol, by 0.19%. The lowest index was that of São Paulo (0.09%), where gasoline rose by 0.87% and alcohol, by 0.19%. the lowest index was that of São Paulo (0.09%), which, with participation of 33.06% in IPCA-15, exerted significant on the result of the month. See below the results for this quarter.

Nevertheless, the metropolitan area of São Paulo, with 6.03%, was slightly below IPCA-15, which closed the year at 6.10%, significantly above the figure in 2007 (4.36%). The lowest index by area was that of Brasília, with 5.24%, whereas the highest one was observed in Belém, with 8.11%.

The group Food products and Beverages was the main responsible for the index of the year. With contribution of 2.59 percentage points, this group accounted for 42% of IPCA-15. After the rising period which started in 2007, when these items reached 10.09%, the prices of food products remained on a rising trend and reached 11.95%, in 2008. Meat and meals in restaurants were the items with the highest contribution in the year: 0.55 percentage points each. Meat got 27.48% more expensive and meals,  14.41%. Rice and beans became significantly more expensive. Throughout the year, black beans rose 81.72% and rice, 33.84%. Several items presented significant changes, being the highlight tomatoes (93.01%), jerked meat (43.38%), bread (19.57%), chicken (13,26%) and refined sugar (13.26%).

The result for non-food products in the year was 4.49%, above the result of 2.89% in 2007. Among the main changes, the highlights are airline tickets (12.86%), cleaning articles (11.40%), salaries of domestic workers (11.04%) and articles for household repair (10.45%). On the other hand, important items to family consumption had little significant changes throughout the year. One example is gasoline, with only 0.15%, and electricity, with 0.78%.