Ukrainian consumer prices rose 1.7 percent in October from the previous month, an acceleration from September`s 1.1 percent rate, the State Statistics Committee said late on Thursday, Reuters reported.

The increase was in line with economists` forecasts, though Economy Minister Bohdan Danylyshyn had forecast prices would rise no faster in October than they had in September.

Inflation is traditionally lower in the summer months because of an abundance of inexpensive farm goods and then tends to pick up in the autumn.

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The committee said the cumulative price rise since the beginning of the year was now 18.0 percent and that prices had risen 23.2 percent in October compared with a year earlier. Analysts had expected an annual increase of 24.0 percent.

Analysts say the annual inflation rate for 2008 will rise to 21.5 percent from 16.6 percent last year.

The International Monetary Fund, which has just provided a $16.5 billion loan to Ukraine,

forecasts annual inflation of 25.5 percent in

2008 and 17.0 percent in 2009.

The government 2009 forecast, as set down in the draft budget, is 9.5 percent.

Reuters