
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 8, 1990                   TAG: 9003081588
SECTION: MISCELLANEOUS                    PAGE: C-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

U.S. NOT ALONE IN INFLATION SPEEDUP

Inflation speeded up in the United States and other major industrial countries in 1989 for the third year in a row, the International Monetary Fund reported Wednesday.

Prices paid by consumers in the seven industrial countries - Britain, Italy, West Germany, Japan, France and Canada in addition to the United States - rose an average of 4.4 percent compared with 3.4 percent in 1988, 3 percent in 1987 and 2.4 percent in 1986.

Britain showed the biggest rise, to 7.8 percent, from 3.4 percent three years earlier, according to the report in the fund's monthly "IMF Memorandum." Japan, which had only a 0.6 percent inflation rate in 1986, showed the smallest increase in 1989 at 2.3 percent. - Associated Press

by CNB