Utility rates will not be raised in 2025, and in subsequent years, tariffs are expected to gradually be brought to market levels - NBU

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) expects that utility rates will not be raised in 2025, and in subsequent years, tariffs are expected to gradually be brought to market levels.

This is stated in the NBU inflation report, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"A restraining factor for administrative inflation will continue to be the moratorium on raising tariffs for the population for certain housing and utilities services, which, according to the forecast assumptions, will limit the growth of administrative prices in 2025. At the same time, it is expected that the gradual bringing of energy tariffs to market levels will become a significant pro-inflationary factor in the following years," it says.

The NBU reports that world gas prices remained significantly higher than those used to calculate tariffs for a number of housing and communal services for the population (natural gas, heating and hot water).

Bringing tariffs to a market-based level would potentially have a significant positive contribution to the growth of the CPI (4.7 pp according to NBU estimates).

However, the implementation of such an impact was prevented by the moratorium on increasing tariffs for certain housing and communal services.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, tariffs for electricity, gas and heat for the population will remain unchanged until the end of the heating season, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.