The Extended National Consumer Price Index-15 (IPCA-15) had a variation of 0.38% in December, inferior to the 0.44% November rate. With this result, the accumulated in the year, which is the Special Extended National Consumer Price Index (IPCA-E), was 4.18%, much lower than the 6.10% of 2008. In December 2008, IPCA-15 was 0.29%. For the calculation of IPCA-15, prices were collected from November 14 to December11 and compared to those in effect from October 14 to November 13. The indicator refers to families with income of 1 to 40 minimum wages and comprises the metropolitan areas of Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Recife, São Paulo, Belém, Fortaleza, Salvador e Curitiba, besides Brasília and Goiânia. The methodology is the same used for IPCA; the difference lies in the period of price collection. IPCA-E is IPCA-15 accumulated in periods.

The reduced IPCA-15 of December is due principally to the decreased prices of food products, which from the 0.39% rate of November changed to 0.17% in December. Rice (-0.75%) and beans (-2.19% black beans and -2.18% Carioca beans) became cheaper for consumers, as well as tomatoes (-19.83%), pasteurized milk (-5.31%), meats (-1.03%) and other important products for the family budget.

Non-food products presented a 0.44% rate in December, very close to that recorded in November (0.45%). As shown in the following table, besides Food products and beverages, the groups Household articles, Transportation and Communication showed decreased prices from November to December.

In December, airplane fares stood out, with a rise that reached 46.56%, recording the greatest contribution of December: 0.12 percentage point. Airplane fares, which also increased by 18.03 % in November, closed the year with a rise of 37.63%, considering the price reduction of the previous months.

Despite the rise in aviation, the group Transportation presented a decrease from one month to the other. This happened mainly because of the reduced growth rhythm of new cars (from 1.11% to 0.60%), alcohol (from 9.13% to 2.08%) and gasoline (from 1.36% to 0.33%), besides the price decrease verified in used cars (from -0.12% to -0.92%) and voluntary automobile insurance (from 3.38% to 2.89%).

Among regional indexes, the highest was recorded in Brasília (0.96%), where airplane tickets had a rise of 52.53%. The lowest was recorded in Salvador (0.06%), influenced principally by the results of gasoline (-3.43%), alcohol (-4.21%) and used cars (-2.73%). The quarterly regional indexes are presented below.

In the year, the highest index was also recorded in Brasília (5.05%) basically due to the rise of airplane fares (58.95%), besides rent (8.08%) and condominium fees (9.07%). The lowest regional index was that of Goiânia (3.23%), where food products (1.32%) presented the smallest variation among the surveyed areas.

Among the 384 surveyed items, only 20 were responsible for around 80% of the 4.1% rate relative to the index accumulated in the year. They are:

With a rise of 8.46%, meals consumed outside the household were the leading contributions in the year, with 0.35 percentage point, although Food products and beverages (3.08%) have stayed below the general index and much lower than the result of the previous year (11.57%), as shown in the group table.

Non-food products were 4.51%, above the general index and very close to the result of the previous year (4.49%). The group Personal expenses (7.82%) presented the highest variation, with highlights being household workers (8.73%), cigarettes (26.99%) and services of hairdresser’s (7.97%). The lowest result was presented by the group Communication (1.11%).