In May, the CPI inflation in Kazakhstan has accelerated to 6.9% y/y from 6.5% registered in April and 6.2% y/y seen in March, the Statistics Agency has reported. Acceleration of inflation is driven by sharp depreciation of Kazakh national currency KZT on Feb 11. National Bank of Kazakhstan decided to stop supporting KZT which led to de facto devaluation of around 20%.
Since the beginning of the current year the rate of inflation has reached 4.5% ytd. In m/m terms, the CPI inflation remained at the same level as it was seen in April – 0.6% m/m. Thus, in May, a stagnation in prices was seen. Prices for food in May rose by 0.8% m/m (slowdown against April), for non-food products by 0.6% m/m, paid services by 0.3% m/m.
We assume that growth in prices would have been higher but the authorities took measures to ease burden of price hike for the society. One of the examples is government’s moratorium on tariff changes until May. However we would expect further acceleration of inflation given raises in wages starting from Apr 1. The government’s target for the inflation corridor remains unchanged at 6-8% y/y this year.
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