Mamarizo Nurmuratov: We do not expect energy prices to increase in the second half of the year

In Uzbekistan, it was expected to increase the prices of electricity and natural and liquefied gas from July, but the government postponed the plans for an indefinite period.

At the July 21 press conference, Kun.uz reporter asked the CB Chairman Mamarizo Nurmuratov how he assesses whether energy tariffs will remain unchanged and the impact of tariffs on inflationary expectations.

It is known that the Central Bank did not take into account the increase in energy prices in its forecast on the formation of the inflation rate around the lower limit of the corridor of 12-14% by the end of the year.

“We didn’t take into account that tariffs will change in the second half of the year when we said that inflation will be within 12% by the end of the year. That is, in our calculations, the tariffs may have a certain correction at today’s level (there are internal local tariffs given by the authorities and others), but at the government level, based on the opinion that the tariffs should not change until the end of the year, we set a forecast of 12%,” Nurmuratov said.

According to him, in May calculations, the Central Bank expected the change in tariffs to affect inflation by 2-2.4%.

“Now this effect has minimized by itself, allowing us to conclude inflation of 12%,” the CB chairman said.

It should be recalled that on July 21, the Central Bank reduced the annual base rate by 1 percentage point to 15%.

The regulator has also upgraded GDP expectations – year-end real GDP growth is expected to be around 5.0-5.5% (the previous forecast was 3.5-4.5%).

The inflation targets of 7-8% for 2022 and 5% for 2023 will be moved to 2023 and 2024, respectively.