Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 11 January (BelTA) – The record-low inflation in Belarus was the result of a sound monetary policy of Belarus’ National Bank, Vadim Iosub, a senior analyst at Alpari Company, told BelTA.

“Last year we had the inflation at 4.6%. That was a historical minimum for our country. It should be noted that the inflation was reduced thanks to a well-balanced and sound monetary policy of the National Bank. The money printing press was stopped long ago, the money supply growth taken under control and directed lending on a slowdown. In addition, efforts were taken to make sure that the growth of average incomes was commensurate with the labor productivity growth,” the expert said.

Vadim Iosub stressed that these measures are classic and well-known, but their implementation allowed to reduce the rate of inflation.

“If we talk about the current year, the initial official forecast for the inflation was under 7%. But at the end of last year the forecast was revised to 6%. I think that the real indicator will be somewhere in the middle. My forecast is within the range of 6% to 7%,” Vadim Iosub noted.

Vadim Iosub believes that the inflation at the end of 2018 will be slightly higher than in 2017. “There are several reasons for this: firstly, the increase of incomes of the population will slightly outstrip the inflation not only in nominal terms but also in real terms. Secondly, the active development of consumer crediting will push up the prices. On the one hand, this is good because this means the growth of economic activity. On the other, lending will put pressure on prices. It's worth mentioning that the prices that are regulated administratively will be increasing too. First of all, we are talking about the tariffs for utilities and public transport,” he said.

As it was reported, the consumer price index for goods and services in December 2017 rose by 4.6 as against December 2016. Thar was the record low inflation for Belarus.