Inflation in Russia might not exceed 15% in 2022 - Putin

MOSCOW. May 25 (Interfax) - Inflation in Russia has slowed lately and might not exceed 15% in 2022, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting of the Presidium of the State Council for Social Issues.

"For 2022, it might not exceed 15%, at least we are working on this premise," he said.

He also said the Russian economy "has dynamics significantly better than forecast by some experts," and that the level of unemployment had even fallen to 4%.

Inflation in the year will not exceed 15%, and consumer prices for a number of goods have already begun to decline, with a steady deflationary trend expected in the coming weeks, presidential aide Maxim Oreshkin said during the New Horizons forum held by Russia's Knowledge association last week.

"There were a lot of negative forecasts on inflation in general - 20%, 25% inflation. Now we can say with confidence that in 2022, inflation in our country will not exceed 15%," he said. "We can see that our weekly inflation is now slowing down, in the coming weeks we will already arrive at a fairly stable deflationary trend," Oreshkin said.

The Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said consumer prices rose 0.15% in the first 13 days of May and 11.84% since the start of the year.

The Economic Development ministry is forecasting inflation in Russia in 2022 at a level of 17.5%. The Central Bank is forecasting 18-23%. The Econ Ministry gave its forecast in the middle of May, after weekly inflation had slowed abruptly, while the Central Bank gave its forecast at the end of April.