BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 21. Asian Development Bank (ADB) increased the forecast for Uzbekistan’s inflation rate for 2023 from 8 percent to 11 percent, Trend reports via the bank.
ADB also revised the inflation rate forecast for 2022 from 9 percent to 12 percent.
Despite higher costs for imported food and capital goods, rising wages and pensions, and price deregulation for domestic wheat, inflation decelerated slightly to 10.6 percent in the first half of 2022 from 10.9 percent a year earlier.
To stabilize food prices, the Uzbek authorities exempted tax and customs duties on essential foodstuffs until the end of 2022, helping to slow food inflation to 14.2 percent from 15.5 percent a year earlier. Inflation for other goods accelerated from 8.6 percent to 9 percent but for services slowed from 8.4 percent to 6.6 percent as planned energy tariff increases were postponed.
In response to external inflationary pressure and depreciation of the Uzbek sum against the US dollar, monetary authorities raised the policy rate from 14 percent to 17 percent in March 2022, subsequently lowering the rate to 16 percent in June and 15 percent in July to support growth as the exchange rate stabilized.