Inflation in Russia reached its annual peak today, Russia's Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said.
"The peak of inflation was not passed, but we reached the highest point," RIA Novosti cited him. "I think it could be quite a long period of time - in a month or two it will be up to 17%, or about 17%," Ulyukayev said.
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov is more optimistic about the situation. "Now we believe that the negative peak is passed and we see certain moments of stabilization," TASS cited him as saying. The head of the Ministry of Finance pointed to the fact that in recent years the ruble has strengthened, since the beginning of the year it has become "one of the strongest currencies," as well as to the stabilization of the situation in the financial markets.
The deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, Anatoly Aksakov, told Vestnik Kavkaza that the effect of the devaluation of the national currency had a one-off nature. "It has a limited period of implementation, it is exhausted now and there will be a progressive decline in inflation. Actually, the economy is slipping from this peak, because at the end of March, inflation was 0.5%, it is less than 10% during the year. You can talk about that trend for a fall was already set, and you don't need to do nothing special in this regard, it's enough to lead fiscal and monetary policy neatly," he explained."Fiscal policy is now tough, even maybe too tough, since the cost of the budget during the crisis do not increase, although in such circumstances, the state often increases costs to spur economic growth. Also, wages do not increase. Bank lowers key interest rate, that can be evaluated as stimulating inflation, but we see that the main factors affecting inflation today, are not monetary. So, I think, very discreet actions of Central Bank and the government already allow inflation to slide to a lower level," Anatoly Aksakov said.
The deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, Anatoly Aksakov, told Vestnik Kavkaza that the effect of the devaluation of the national currency had a one-off nature. "It has a limited period of implementation, it is exhausted now and there will be a progressive decline in inflation. Actually, the economy is slipping from this peak, because at the end of March, inflation was 0.5%, it is less than 10% during the year. You can talk about the trend for fall having already been set, and you don't need to do anything special in this regard, it's enough to lead fiscal and monetary policy neatly," he explained.
"Fiscal policy is now tough, even maybe too tough, since the cost of the budget during the crisis has not increased, although in such circumstances the state often increases costs to spur economic growth. Also, wages have not increased. The bank lowers the key interest rate, that can be evaluated as stimulating inflation, but we see that the main factors affecting inflation today are not monetary. So, I think the very discreet actions of Central Bank and the government already allow inflation to slide to a lower level," Anatoly Aksakov said.
According to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, the annual inflation rate in February was 16.7%. The weekly inflation rate has stayed at 0.2% for the past three weeks.
