11 February 2021, Thursday, 18:44 190

Consumer Inflation Expectedly Accelerated And Goes Beyond Upper Limit Of Target Range Of 5%±1 pp In January - NBU

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

In January, consumer inflation, as expected, accelerated and went beyond the upper limit of the target range of 5%±1 percentage points.

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has said this in a statement, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"The actual consumer inflation, as expected, went beyond the upper limit of the target range of 5%±1 percentage points. At the same time, it was slightly below the trajectory of the forecast published in the inflation report for January 2021," the statement reads.

The NBU stressed that the rise in prices for certain food products, fuel and tobacco products, as well as further growth in consumer demand, formed pro-inflationary pressure.

In turn, inflation was constrained by the decline in the cost of natural gas.

It is indicated that core inflation in January accelerated to 5% year over year (from 4.5% year over year in December).

The growth rate of prices for processed food products increased (up to 5.8% year over year).

Non-food products also rose in price at a high rate (2.6% year over year), which was also due to significant consumer demand and the reflection of the weak hryvnia in prices in previous months.

Thus, in January, the growth in the cost of household appliances, pharmaceuticals and automobiles continued to accelerate, while the decline in prices for electronics slowed down somewhat.

The growth rates of prices for services remained practically unchanged (6.8% year over year).

On the one hand, the strengthening of consumer demand and the increase in production costs accelerated the rise in prices for tourism services, rental housing and car maintenance, and on the other, the growth rates of prices for medical services, as well as for services of cinemas and sports institutions, decreased.

As expected, the growth in prices for raw food products accelerated (to 5.5% year over year).

In particular, the reduction in production and growth in production costs led to a noticeable rise in the price of eggs and slowed down the decline in the price of chicken.

Sugar and flour have risen more in price due to high world prices and low yields of sugar beet and wheat.

The decrease in fuel prices slowed down (to 4.7% year over year) due to the rise in world oil prices and the continued high demand from the population.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, according to the State Statistics Service, in January core inflation amounted to 0.3%.