Inflation fell to 3.6 percent in Bashkiria

UFA, 17 December 2019. /Bashinform News Agency, Galina Bakhshieva/ translated by Tatiana Aksyutina/.

Inflation in Bashkiria in annual terms continues to decline and amounted to 3.6% in November, the press service of the National Bank RB of the Ural Main Directorate of the Central Bank of Russia stated.

“Food prices made the main contribution to the slowdown in inflation”, experts explained.

Due to the increase in domestic production and market saturation, the annual growth rate of egg prices from May to November decreased from 7.4% to 1.2%, meat products - from 7.4% to 1.5%, wheat flour from 21.2% to 13.7%.

Due to the high degree of market saturation, the decline in sugar prices in annual terms amounted to 30.5%, for sunflower oil - 6%.

“The annual growth rate of prices for non-food products slowed down under the influence of limited demand growth, the strengthening of the ruble, as well as the statistical effect of the high base of last year,” the National Bank for Bashkiria added.

From May to November, the annual growth rate of car prices decreased from 5.7% to 4.9%, motor fuel - from 3.3% to 2.3%, building materials - from 5.7% to 2, 6%, electrical goods, and household appliances - from 9.3% to 2.9%.

At the same time, prices for the number of goods decreased. For example, during the year, televisions fell in price by 5.3%, smartphones - by 9.1%, tablet computers - by 7.9% in the republic.

The slowdown in inflation in the service sector was mainly due to the influence of the mechanism of the two-stage indexation of housing and utility prices in 2019.

Meanwhile, the growth rate of prices for urban passenger transportation decreased from 4.8% in November 2018 to 0.1% in November this year (as indexation was not carried out). For household services in general - from 5.7% to 3.1%.

At the same time, prices for banking and insurance services, cinema services were even lower than a year ago. This is due, first of all, to a decrease in the key rate of the Central Bank, high competition in the market of these types of services, and also to the development of remote sales channels.

As Bashinform News Agency reported, on December 13, the Central Bank lowered its key rate by another 0.25 percentage points - to 6.25% - the fifth time since the beginning of the year.

According to forecasts of the Bank of Russia, annual inflation will amount to 3.5-4% in 2020 and will remain about 4% in the future.

Lower key rates will help increase the availability of mortgages and loans for businesses.

“We see that inflation has slowed in recent months,” commented on Rustem Mardanov, head of the Ural Main Directorate of the Central Bank of Russia. “In November, it amounted to 3.5% in Russia and 3.6% in Bashkiria. Among the main reasons, there is a slowdown in price growth, a good harvest of a number of crops at once, an increase in the supply of meat products, a stronger ruble, restrained demand and a decrease in inflation in the trading partner countries. According to the forecast of the Bank of Russia, inflation will amount to 2.9-3.2% in 2019”.