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Belarus’ National Bank projects cooling inflation

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 MINSK, 29 October (BelTA) – The National Bank is not currently forecasting an increase in inflation. In fact, the trend seems to be towards a slowdown, Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus Roman Golovchenko told the media after delivering a report to the head of state on 29 October, BelTA has learned.

“We do not see any major risk of inflationary processes intensifying. Moreover, the so-called trend (or forward-looking) inflation, which we calculate using special methods to remove the influence of certain situational factors, is now at 6%. Therefore, I believe that we should end the year with approximately this level of inflation, which has now taken shape,” the head of the National Bank said.

“The trend in inflation is currently toward slowing [in September this year, the annual increase in consumer prices eased to 7.1%]. If you remember,  this figure stood at 7.4% in July. While this is still above our target of 5%, it is worth noting that several one-off factors have played a role in this. These include rising producer prices and the transfer of some inflation from our main economic partner, the Russian Federation,” Roman Golovchenko said.

According to him, the main driver of price growth at present is the food group of goods, especially vegetables and fruits. At the same time, prices for non-food items are rising at a rate significantly below the 5% mark.

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