Russia's economy stopped shrinking and was showing signs of real growth in the end of 1994, the government-sponsored Center for Economic Reform said Tuesday.


"There is a strong probability that the economy will fare better in 1995 than in 1994," it said in a report.


It said Russian industrial output had stopped falling last summer. Seasonally adjusted industrial production had risen 8 percent since August and consumption was rising by around 15 percent a month in real terms.


"Russia's industrial output touched the bottom last year ... and things are getting better," Mstislav Afanasyev, deputy head of the center, told a news conference.


But monthly inflation rose to 16.4 percent in December, from the average of 6.5 percent in the second and third quarter. It was the highest monthly rate since the start of last year.


Figures from the state statistics committee showed Russia's industrial output fell 20.9 percent in 1994 over a year ago, but output rose 17.8 percent in the last quarter -- reversing three years of disastrous post-Soviet slumps.


Gross domestic product, a broad measure of goods and services, fell 15 percent after a 12 percent fall in 1993.


Most economists treat official Russian statistics with caution as they do not deal adequately with a growing private sector.


The report said January inflation would match the December rate, although Deputy Economics Minister Sergei Vasilyev told a news conference Russia could still meet its end-1995 inflation target of 1 percent a month.


Official figures released by the center Tuesday also showed that the Russian average monthly wage rose 20 percent in December to 333,000 rubles ($85). The minimum monthly wage remained unchanged at 20,500 rubles, the figures showed.