REUTERS
An increase in the average price of the food basket will not exceed 5%, the expert says.
Director of the Ukrainian Association of Retail Suppliers Oleksiy Doroshenko says the average price of this year's food inflation basket for Ukrainians will rise by no more than 5%, while there are no grounds for an increase in the price of staples in Ukraine this year.
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"Some people start disseminating information about a significant increase in prices of the major food products this year, including bread and sugar. There is no reason for this," he wrote on Facebook on February 24.
The expert added that inflation in Ukraine had been declining since 2015, to 5%-7% in 2019, while the State Statistics Service said it was about 4% last year.
Doroshenko says Ukraine's harvest of each crop is growing annually, while stores are provided with fairly inexpensive and high-quality imported products. At the same time, Ukrainians' incomes are growing due to higher wages. However, their major share is spent on utilities, rather than on foodstuffs supplied by producers.
"Therefore, food prices will be rising, but moderately. So, an increase in the average price of the food basket will not exceed 5% in 2020," he added.
As UNIAN reported earlier, consumer inflation in Ukraine in 2019 slowed to 4.1%, which hit a six-year low.
The inflation in January 2020 slowed to 3.2%, while consumer prices grew by 0.2% against December 2019.
Ukrainian farmers in 2019 harvested 75 million tonnes of grain, according to Ukraine's Ministry for Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture.