Russia's monthly inflation in December soared to its highest level since January, and relatively loose government spending is likely to keep the rate above 10 percent through the first quarter of 1995, economists said Wednesday.


Yekaterina Prokurina, head of the price statistics department at the State Statistics Committee, said that the committee's operative inflation index had jumped 16.4 percent in December, compared to an overall inflation rate of 14.2 percent in November and 17.9 percent in January.


The operative index reflects combined weekly price changes for a limited basket of goods monitored in Russia's larger cities. December's overall inflation rate, a more accurate indicator that covers a wider range of goods and locations but takes more time to calculate, is likely to be slightly lower, Prokurina said.


Sergei Pavlenko, director of the government Center for Economic Reform, said that inflation had amounted to 11.5 percent in the first three weeks of December, and estimated that the overall monthly figure would be around 15.5 percent.


Despite a sharp upturn at the end of the year, annual Russian inflation for 1994 should be about 200 percent, a step forward from the 1993 annual figure of 843 percent, said Pavel Teplukhin, an economist with the independent Center for Economic Performance.


But he predicted that high monthly inflation will continue into the new year due to delayed effects of government credits issued in the second half of 1994.


"Inflation is likely to be double-digit throughout the first quarter of 1995," he said.


Pavlenko agreed, saying that January and February inflation are likely to decline only slightly from December's level.


"After a seasonal peak in December-January, the rate will fall, but no trend will be clear until April," he said.Top Russian economic officials, including Economics Minister Yevgeny Yasin, had given much more optimistic forecasts about end-of-the-year inflation, saying it would be under 10 percent.


Russia had promised to cut down monthly inflation to 7 to 9 percent by the end of 1994 in its mid-year economic policy statement to the International Monetary Fund.


The target looked realistic until October, when the ruble's dramatic crash pushed the inflation rate back into the double digits for the first time in seven months.


The State Statistics Committee's operative inflation rate was 15.1 percent in October, though the overall rate later came in at 11.8 percent. Monthly inflation hit its 1994 low in August at 4.6 percent.