​INFLATION PRESSURE TO PRESERVE IN MOLDOVA UNTIL END OF YEAR - NBM

The National Bank of Moldova Executive Committee left unchanged its previous inflation forecast, maintaining that the inflation pressure will preserve in Moldova at least until the end of the year.

According to the NBM, this will most likely be conditioned by the total demand, the growth of unit labor cost and seasonal effect. The situation will change in the first quarter of 2020, when the inflation will start lowering.

The Executive Committee pointed that in September the annual inflation level accounted for 6.3% thus was developing according to the forecast.

“There was a sharp economic growth in the first half of the year, which will last till the end of 2019, though in more modest amounts. In the second quarter the population investments grew against the consumption, including due to revenue growth. At the same time, the volume of new credits, issued in national currency within the previous quarter accounted for 5.8 billion lei, growing 26.1% against the equivalent period of 2018”, the NBM said, promising to publish the new, 4th report on inflation next week.

The National Bank will keep tracking and forecasting the internal and external macroeconomic changes, risks and uncertainties, connected with the development of inflation to ensure the preserving of price stability in mid-term perspective.

As Infotag has already reported, in the previous forecast (September), the NBM was forecasting that pressure on prices will grow and the inflation will reach 8% by the end of 2019. However NBM Governor Octavian Armasu said that the inflation will still stay beyond the target corridor of 5% ± 1.5% at the beginning of 2020, but later will return back to it. “We expect that in 2020 the inflation will slow down as a result of lower changes of world prices for food products and petroleum, a higher external and internal demand against previous forecasts”, Armasu said.