Russia to have 5.6% inflation in 2016; prices won't surge in December - Econ Ministry
ST. PETERSBURG. Dec 8 (Interfax) - Inflation will not surge in December, with price growth amounting to 0.5% in the month, and inflation for 2016 as a whole will be 5.6%, below the official forecast of 5.8%, the head of the Economic Development Ministry's macroeconomic forecasting department Kirill Tremasov said at the 15th Russian Bond Congress organized by Cbonds.
"Regarding inflation, I think that annual inflation will end up lower than our annual forecast of 5.8%. It's important that the trend continues to develop toward inflation slowing down in the future and the partial removal of inflationary risks," he said.
"At the end of the year, to me 5.6% probably seems the most likely range right now," he said.
"I think that inflation in December will be around the level as the previous month, 0.5% plus or minus," Tremasov said.
He also said that he believed target inflation of 4% in 2017 was "completely attainable."
"First of all, it is important that oil has recovered, and it has returned to above 50 [dollars per barrel], and this removes inflationary risks to a significant degree, risks of the ruble weakening this year. From that side there are no particular risks. There were dangers connected with the fact that inflation on imports could begin connected with food prices jumping. Right now we see that food prices in the last few months on world markets are seemingly falling again, and therefore, here inflationary risks were also probably exaggerated," Tremasov said.