Kazakhstan sees 3.2pct inflation

By Azernews

By Kamila Aliyeva

The inflation rate in Kazakhstan hit 3.2 percent in January- March 2017, the Statistics Committee under the National Economy Ministry of Kazakhstan reported.

Food prices have increased by 3.2 percent, non-food items’ prices and paid services’ prices have gone up by 1.7 percent since early 2017.

Kazakhstan’s inflation rate over the 12 months ended March 2017 amounted to 7.7 percent.
In March 2017, the inflation rate was 0.5 percent.

In 2016 inflation rate hit 8.5 percent in Kazakhstan.

The Kazakh National Bank forecasts inflation rate in the country to decrease to 6.5-7 percent in 2017, and to begin to smoothly enter the target range of 5-7 percent in 2018.

Slowdown of inflation will occur on account of a decrease in inflation expectations, an enhancement of stability and predictability of the situation on domestic money market, as well as an adoption of moderately restrictive monetary policy in 2017.

The Kazakh National Bank recently reported that external inflationary environment is characterized as moderately favorable.

The National Bank also forecasts that economic growth in Kazakhstan will accelerate to 2.2 percent in 2017 and to 4.7 percent for the nine months of 2018.

Economic growth in this period will be provided due to the growth in domestic consumption amid rising real wages, the growth of investment in fixed assets in the framework of the implementation of government programs to support and diversify the economy, the growth of production of mineral resources (the Kashagan effect).

Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings affirmed its 'BBB-/A-3' long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings of Kazakhstan. S&P also affirmed national scale ratings of Kazakhstan at 'kzAA'. The outlook on the long-term ratings is negative.

Fitch's credit rating for Kazakhstan was last reported at BBB with stable outlook.