Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Sept. 15
By Demir Azizov– Trend:
The Central Bank of Uzbekistan expects the inflation rate to reach 11-12 percent as of 2017, Ilkhom Norkulov, head of the monetary policy department of the country’s central bank, told reporters.
"We expect an inflation rate to be below 10 percent by 2018," Norkulov said.
He stressed that the inflation rate increased under the influence of the factors formed in January-June 2017 and it is less related to the devaluation of the Uzbek sum.
"The change in the forecast was stipulated by the growth in lending to the country’s economy," Norkulov said.
Norkulov said that the country’s central bank has decided to raise the refinancing rate to 14 percent from 9 percent per annum since June 28, 2017. The decision was stipulated by the acceleration of inflation rate, which was associated with seasonal fluctuations.
According to the official statistics, inflation rate was 5.7 percent in Uzbekistan in 2016 compared to 5.6 percent in 2015. It is planned to keep inflation rate within the range of 5.7-6.7 percent in 2017.