Ombudsman: New food inflation spike in Russia possible

MOSCOW, Aug 24 (PRIME) – Russia’s food inflation index may jump again very soon, Boris Titov, business ombudsman, told reporters on Monday.

“We have stagflation in the country. You shouldn’t wait for lower inflation and a significant strengthening of the ruble any time soon. Russia’s is an import inflation and tariff inflation, that is why the future of the economic situation is very hard,” he said.

Consumer inflation will be high. “We are now on the verge of a new inflation spike, firstly because of import will become more expensive, it must be foreseen,” he said.

On Monday, the Brent oil price fell below U.S. $43 per barrel. “Even if the oil price had not gone down, we would still have had problems. They were seen not only in the business sentiment index, but also in official statistics, including figures of the gross domestic product fall and contraction of industrial output,” he said.

The oil is now retracting to the levels of the beginning of the year, and it is important to make a strategic decision instead of a short-term one.

“But in the future (the problems) will nevertheless emerge on a larger scale and lead to a worse result. That is why the most important thing is to focus on long-term or at least mid-term goals instead of short-term goals. But first we should allow business to develop, and it will drag the country’s economy out of this situation,” Titov said.

According to the Federal State Statistics Service’s data, Russia’s annual inflation increased to 15.6% in July from 15.3% in June.

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