Situation with inflation in Ukraine disastrous – Economy minister

The situation with inflation in Ukraine has been disastrous, Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture Ihor Petrashko has said.

"The macroeconomic forecast, which became the basis of the budget, provides for inflation of around 11%. The NBU [the National Bank of Ukraine] envisaged inflation near 5-8-6%. We now have a disastrous situation with inflation. This is a very bad trend," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.

According to the State Statistics Service, inflation in May 2020 slowed to 1.7% year-over-year from 2.1% in April, 2.3% in March. Inflation in 2019 was 4.1%.

"All countries of the European Union and the United States are also struggling with this fact, because it means a decrease in competitiveness and a depression for employees' wages. And, since Ukraine is not in the euro and American zones, the depression is also relative to trade balances. Therefore, we are thinking about how to stimulate the economy today, including programs for which we work with banks, and the president announced the need to find options on how to realize these possibilities with banks," the minister said.

"We need banks to start issuing funds to the economy, so that we have an increased supply of money," Petrashko said.

At the same time, he added that the ministry does not plan the unscheduled reviews of macroeconomic forecasts, although it carefully monitors the situation.

Source: www.en.interfax.com.ua