National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has lowered GDP growth forecast from 3% to 2.5% in 2017. The regulator projects the economy to grow by 3.5% in 2018. The major factor influencing the GDP growth is a change in projections for foreign markets of Ukrainian exports, told the NBU head Valeria Gontareva.
At this, the inflation is expected to speed up in Q4/2016 bringing an annual increase of 12% (+/- 3 percentage points), assured the currency board head. Meantime, the inflation in 2017 in first three consecutive quarters in yearly terms will not be even and may exceed 12% due to raise in tariffs from the government. At this, by the end of 2017 NBU is targeting inflation at 8%. The base inflation rate is expected to be more stable at 5-6%.
