Cbank: Russians’ inflationary expectations high for laxer policy

MOSCOW, Feb 6 (PRIME) – Russians’ inflationary expectations continued to fall in January, but are still too high pushing the central bank to maintain its moderately tough monetary policy, the regulator said in a research note published on Monday citing a poll.

The share of respondents that think the central bank’s target inflation of 4% will be achieved in 2017 increased by 5 percentage points in January to a record of 23%. The median estimate of inflation for the next 12 months expected by Russians decreased 0.9 percentage points to 11.5%, the lowest figure since July 2014.

“In January 2017, citizens’ inflationary expectations continued to abate…The estimate of observed inflation also went down. But inflationary expectations are still rather high, which shows the necessity for the central bank to maintain a moderately tough monetary policy,” the authority said in the research note.

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