The main risk for the dynamics of inflation and economic development remains the further course of a full-scale war, the NBU said.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has raised its forecast for real gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2024 and improved inflation expectations. NBU head Andriy Pyshny said this at a briefing on Thursday, April 25.
According to him, this year the GDP of Ukraine will grow by 3%. The forecast has decreased compared to January (3.6%).
“The real GDP growth forecast worsened due to the consequences of Russia’s large-scale attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure,” Pyshny said.
The economy is expected to grow by 5.3% in 2025 (previous forecast – 5.8%), in 2026 GDP will increase by 4.5% (previous forecast – 4.5%).
At the same time, the National Bank improved the inflation forecast for 2024 from 8.6% to 8.2% and worsened it for 2025 from 5.8 to 6%.
“As before, the NBU forecasts a moderate increase in inflationary pressure this year, taking into account the expected exhaustion of the effects of last year’s large harvests, a further continuation of consumption and an increase in business costs in war conditions,” said the head of the NBU.
“At the same time, taking into account better actual inflation dynamics and improved inflation expectations, the inflation forecast for the end of this year has been reduced from 8.6% to 8.2%,” Pyshny added.
Subsequently, inflation will enter the target corridor of “5%+-1%”. In particular, previous expectations for accelerating consumer price growth to 5% in 2026 have been maintained.
Pyshny noted that the main danger for the dynamics of inflation and economic development remains the further course of a full-scale war.
We remind you that in 2023, the real GDP of Ukraine grew by 5.3% after decreasing by 28.8% in 2022. Such data was published by the State Statistics Service.
Earlier, Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal said that in 2024 the Cabinet of Ministers expects 5% growth in Ukraine’s GDP.
Source: korrespondent
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