The Extended Consumer Price Index-15 (IPCA-15) has changed by 0.40% in the first month of 2009. It is above the rate of December 2008, but below the 0.70% of January 2008. There was decrease of the index accumulated in the last 12 months from 6.10% to 5.79% from December to January.

The main impact on the January index came from urban bus fares, with hike of 2.35% and contribution of 0.09 percentage points to the overall index in January. The result reflected the increases of 3.77% in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro; 4.76% in Belo Horizonte; 4.25% in Salvador; 10.00% in Belém; and 1.13% in Curitiba – where there was no readjustment of the promotional fare charged on Sundays. There was also rise of fares of intercity buses (3.24%) and interstate buses (2.31%).

In spite of the rise of public transportation, the group transportation faced slight fall in January (from 0.00% to -0.01%), with lower prices for both new cars (-5.08%) and used cars (-3.77%).

The rate of housing was also higher (from 0.32% to 0.50%), as a consequence of the results of rents (from 0.56% to 1.01%) and condominium taxes (from -0.08% to 1.09%), as well as apparel (from 0.78% to 0.84%), which rose from one month to the other.

As a consequence, non-food products had slight rise, changing from 0.29% in December to 0.31% in January.

Prices of food products also accelerated from one month to the other (from 0.34% to 0.72%). Higher prices were observed in products in natura, such as fruits (from 0.91% in December to  2.41% in January) and potatoes (from 2.40% to 11.87%), and beverages, especially beer (from -0.33% to 2.11%) and soft drinks (from 0.74% to 2.00%).

The highest index by area was registered in metropolitan area of Belém (1.01%), mainly due to the readjustment of 13% of urban bus fares, granted on December 20, as a consequence of the January figure (10.0%). The lowest index was that of Recife (0.01%).

For the calculation of IPCA-15, prices collected from December 11 to January 14 were compared to those charged from November  to December 10.  The index refers to families with income ranging from 1 to 40 minimum wages and covers the metropolitan areas of Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Recife, São Paulo, Belém, Fortaleza, Salvador and Curitiba, besides Brasília and the municipality of Goiânia IPCA-15 is calculated through the same methodology of IPCA, which collects price information throughout the calendar month. The collection period constitutes the main difference between the two indexes.