Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of Ukraine Bogdan Danylyshyn questioned the accuracy of regulator’s inflation forecasts, he wrote in his article for DT.UA.

“In NBU, the situation with inflation forecasts is not satisfactory. However, in practice of world central banks, the false forecasts regarding the price dynamics are observed with the same frequency as good forecasts”, Danylyshyn states.

“If we consider the countries, the economies of which belong to small open economies (Ukraine is among them), then, in the middle of last year, 40% of them did not reach announced inflation targets”, Chairman of NBU Board noted.

According to him, in Ukrainian conditions, the inflation most often emerges due to the lack of coordination among public authorities.

“The accuracy of forecasts in our conditions a priori is questionable (however, there are some doubts in forecasting capabilities of respective NBU specialists). Therefore, they not always can serve the basis for making decisions”, Chairman of NBU Board notes.

“It is very important not to forget about our key strategic targets – economic growth, reduction of unemployment rate and rise of people’s income. Just the stabilization of inflation at low rate will not guarantee achievement of these targets. Particularly as NBU tool, currently used for it – increase in the bank rate – leads to the increase of loan cost”, he summarized.

Reportedly, in January-February 2018, the consumer price index in Ukraine was 2.4%.

According to NBU data, in February 2018, the consumer inflation significantly slowed down on year-to-year basis from 14.0% to 14.1% in January, and on month-to-month basis, the consumer price index increased to 0.9%.

It should be reminded that the business excepts for inflation at 10.4% and exchange rate – 29.3 per dollar in 2018.

Reportedly, in December 7, 2017, the Verkhovna Rada approved the state budget for 2018, which provides GDP growth forecast at 3% with inflation 9% and hryvnia rate at 29.3 hryvnia per dollar in 2018.