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The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) informs that consumer-price inflation dynamics seen in the past months show that the weakening of the hryvnia has no longer any impact on consumer prices, according to a posting on the NBU website.
"Bringing consumer-price inflation down to single digits and maintaining low and stable rates of inflation thereafter remain the key objectives of the NBU's monetary policy," the statement quoted Serhiy Nikolaichuk, the director of the NBU's monetary policy and economic analysis department, as saying.
According to him, the price trends recorded in recent months reflect fading devaluation effects. The steady disinflation trend is expected to persist in the period ahead.
The NBU notes that consumer-price inflation continued to be slowing to 55.3% in July year-over-year, after hitting a peak of 60.9% in April.
According to the regulator, the decline in inflation has been determined by stabilization of the hryvnia exchange rate, tight monetary and fiscal policies, as well as moderate consumer demand.
In addition, a substantial supply of vegetables and fruit of this year's harvest pushed down prices for raw foodstuffs in July. As a result, the Consumer Price Index declined by 1.0% month-over-month.
The NBU also noted that seasonal factors had played a significant role in reducing prices for some components of core inflation, in particular, prices for clothing and footwear, which translated into a 0.1% decline in core CPI inflation in July, according to the report.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the NBU recorded 1% deflation in Ukraine in July 2015 from June 2015 for the first time since August 2013. Inflation in July 2015 from July 2014 slowed to 55.3% against 57.5% in June 2015 from June 2014. In general, consumer prices in Ukraine January through July 2015 increased by 39.3%.
The NBU predicts that inflation will be at 48% at the end of 2015 and targets to achieve 5% inflation by 2020.