BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 5. Annual inflation accelerated to 16.1 percent in Kazakhstan in August 2022, Trend reports via the National Bank of Kazakhstan.
According to the bank, in the reporting month prices rose for all its components - food products (by 20.8 percent), non-food products (by 15.5 percent) and paid services (by 10.1 percent).
Among goods and services, the cost of a number of household goods, sugar, flour, cereals, pasta, as well as rental housing grew. The decrease in prices was mainly recorded for a wide range of fruits and vegetables.
Inflation expectations remained high. In August this year, the median estimate of expected inflation in Kazakhstan amounted to 16.5 percent. The share of respondents who expect inflation to remain or increase in a year has grown to 55 percent.
The forecast on risks for further development of the global economy deteriorated. According to IMF, the global economy will slow down from 6.1 percent in 2021 to 3.2 percent in 2022 and to 2.9 percent in 2023 (the previous IMF forecast for 2022-2023 was 3.6 percent). Forecasts for the main trade partners of Kazakhstan (EU, China, and Russia) for 2022-2023 also worsened.
External food inflation continued to decline. The FAO Food Price Index decreased by 1.9 percent in August 2022 (versus a decrease of nine percent in July) due to a decrease in all components included in the index. The grain prices declined partly due to the agreement reached between Ukraine and Russia to unblock the main Black Sea ports of Ukraine and harvest in the northern countries, which helped increase supply.
Due to good, according to FAO, forecasts for the global harvest, an increase in the supply of grain on the world market is expected to favor the further reduction of prices.
Consumer inflation in the world continued to be high. In the EU, annual inflation accelerated to 9.8 percent in July 2022. In the US, as a result of a slight decline in oil prices, inflation slowed down to 8.5 percent. The IMF forecasts for global inflation for 2022-2023 envisage faster price increases than previously expected.