Economics Minister of Ukraine Bohdan Danylyshyn believes that experts of the World Bank exaggerate the influence of world prices on inflation processes in Ukraine.
He said this to an UNIAN correspondent, commenting on the revising of the Ukraine’s inflation outlook by the World Bank.
“In our opinion, World Bank experts, revising upwards their inflation outlook, on the one hand, exaggerate the influence of world prices on inflation processes in Ukraine, and, on the other – underestimate the anti-inflation policy in perspective. Yes, inflation processes are really speeding up at world markets at present, while quite contrary tendencies have been observed in Ukraine”, B.Danylyshyn noted.
At the same time, the Minister stressed that the World Bank has positively assessed the activities of the Ukrainian government and the National Bank of Ukraine on curbing inflation processes in the country.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the World Bank on Friday revised upwards Ukraine`s predicted inflation rate for 2008 to 21.5 per cent. The bank had been predicting 17 per cent inflation, but galloping food and energy prices made that expectation unrealistic, said Ruslan Piontovsky, a bank spokesman. The bank also suggested overall Ukrainian GDP growth will be at a relatively strong 6 per cent on the strength of demand for key Ukrainian export products such as steel, foodstuffs, and chemicals.
