30 Jun 2021 13:41

Putin expects inflation in Russia will not exceed 5% in 2021

MOSCOW. June 30 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said inflation in 2021 would be above the 4% target but that he did not think it would exceed 5%.

"Inflation was in the region of 4% [in annual terms]. Now it has risen to 5.9% [annual, as of the end of May], nearly 6%. Of course the task is to suppress it. It is for this reason that the Central Bank has raised the key rate a little, so there is no excess money supply in the economy," Putin said during a Q&A session on Wednesday.

"I expect that inflation will return to the target, to 4%. We are unlikely to achieve it [4%] this year, but I think we'll be able to get [back down] to a level of 5% [by December]," he said.

Annual inflation was 6.2% as of June 21, according to State Statistics Service (Rosstat) data. Consumer prices had risen 3.9% since the start of the year.

The government's official forecast for the year, unveiled in April, is 4.3%, but First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov said during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum at the beginning of June that expectations had risen to 4.5%-5.0%.

The Central Bank is forecasting 4.7-5.2%. Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said at a press conference on June 11 that she expected inflation for the year would be higher than that but below the current level.