The growth of consumer prices in Ukraine in 2017 accelerated to 13.7% compared with 12.4% in 2016, which, however, is significantly lower than in the past years: it was 43.3% in 2015 and 24.9% in 2014, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine reported.
In December 2017 alone inflation was 1% against 0.9% in November and 1.2% in October, it said.
The statistics service reported that the average annual inflation in 2017 (January-December to January-December of the previous year) increased to 14.4% from 13.9%.
As reported, the Ukrainian government and the National Bank of Ukraine initially forecast a slowdown in consumer price growth to 8-8.1% in 2017. However, during the year they worsened their forecasts. In particular, the government at the end of May 2017 revised its inflation forecast from 8% to 11.2%, and the National Bank’s inflation forecast given in late October 2017 was 12.2% instead of earlier predicted 9.1%; the inflation forecast for 2018 was changed to 7.3% from 6%.
While drafting the national budget for 2018, the Cabinet of Ministers also worsened the inflation forecast for 2018 from 7% to 9%. (Interfax-Ukraine/Business World Magazine)