Central Bank sees fall of inflationary risks
MOSCOW. March 3 (Interfax) - Inflationary risks lately have become less marked, but for now it is too early to speak about this as a stable tendency, Central Bank First Deputy Governor Ksenia Yudayeva said.
On Wednesday, the Russian Federal Statistics Service (Rosstat) said that weekly inflation slowed to 0.1% for the first time since of the end of November.
"One week, of course, is not an indicator, we will see how stable this trend turns out to be," Yudayeva said during an interview with Rossiya 24.
She said that inflationary expectations are falling, but all the same remain "quite high".
A meeting of the Central Bank's board of directors on issues of monetary policy will take place March 18. At previous meetings, the Central Bank halted the fall of the rate and even said that with the strengthening of inflationary risks, the policy may be tightened.
To a question about which way the balance of risks of an economic slowdown has shifted, he said: "Inflationary risks worry us very much, now we will look at how quickly it will change. For now there is a good trend, but we will see what will be further."
"What worries us quite seriously is that medium-term inflationary expectations, in particular those of the professional community, not only economic agents, but professionals, not anchored at a level even close to 4% to this target, which we have. And us there is a very serious task is to make it so that all believe that we a) want to reach it and b) will carry out such a policy, which will allow for reaching it," Yudayeva said.
In general, she said that the Russian economy reacts differently to a new wave in the decline of oil prices, which was observed at the end of last year and the start of this year, it reacts much more calmly for all indicators, than in reacted the year before this. In particular, this concerns the volatility of the exchange rate and the coefficient for the delay of changes of the exchange rate for inflation.