Russia's central bank is likely to revise its annual inflation forecast upwards at its board meeting later this month, the bank's head of monetary policy, Kirill Tremasov, said on Wednesday.
"It is still very early to say the rate hiking cycle is over and that we are starting to look at the possibility of lowering rates," Tremasov said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper.
He said the bank's 2021 GDP growth forecast was near the upper end of its current 4-4.5% estimate and that any revision in October would likely be upward.
"The same is true for inflation. The July forecast was 5.7-6.2%," Tremasov said. "According to the latest statistics, we see that we are likely moving above the upper boundary here, so an upward revision of the inflation forecast is highly likely."
