MOSCOW, March 5 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's finance ministry examines several scenarios of the annual inflation figure for 2005, but the forecast of 8.5% is decisive, said Alexei Kudrin, Russia's finance minister, to journalists Saturday.
"It will be difficult to achieve the annual inflation level of 8.5%, as projected by the federal budget for 2005. However, this is theoretically possible, if we shall have negative inflation (deflation) in the summer months," the minister said.
"At the same time, we consider pessimistic versions, when inflation may reach 10%. Much will depend on the decisions that will be taken on the Stabilization Fund, pricing policy in the housing and utilities sphere, crude prices and, the main thing, on the entire policy of budget spending," the minister added.
