Rio, 2/11/2004 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Inflation as measured by the General Market Price Index (Índice Geral de Preços do Mercado) (IGP-M), which is conducted by the Fundação Getúlio Vargas, found that during the first sample period of February prices were practically stable, rising only 0.08%.

What happened was that wholesale prices (IPA), which account for 60% of the index, actually had negative inflation, down 0.09%. Retail prices (IPC) rose 0.44%, and construction costs (INCC) rose 0.20%. (AB)