World meat industry news

The Bank of Russia lowered its inflation forecast for 2023 from 5-7% to 4.5-6.5%, and is still waiting for it to return to the target 4% in 2024, the Central Bank said in a release following a meeting of the Board of Directors.

Annual inflation declined significantly under the influence of the high base effect, amounting to 3.5% in March (after 11% in February) and 2.5% as of April 24. At the same time, the current price growth rate has increased since the end of 2022 and is about 4% on an annualized basis.

Sustainable indicators of the current price growth, according to the Central Bank, are still mainly formed below 4% in annual terms. The weakening of the ruble that has occurred since the end of 2022 has so far been weakly manifested in price dynamics, the Bank of Russia points out.

Inflationary expectations of the population and price expectations of enterprises remain at an elevated level, demonstrating multidirectional dynamics. Thus, in April inflationary expectations of the population decreased, while price expectations of enterprises increased.

At the same time, the heterogeneity of trends in the dynamics of price expectations of enterprises across the industry has increased: since the beginning of 2023, their significant decline in agriculture was accompanied by an increase in retail and wholesale trade. Inflationary expectations of professional analysts for the medium term are anchored near 4%, the Central Bank said.

According to the Bank of Russia's forecast, annual inflation will temporarily remain below 4% in the coming months due to the effect of last year's high base. In the second half of the year, it will begin to gradually increase as it exits from its calculation of low monthly price increases in summer 2022 and increases from moderate levels of sustained inflationary pressure.

In the baseline scenario, taking into account the ongoing monetary policy, annual inflation will be 4.5-6.5% in 2023, return to 4% in 2024, and will remain close to this level in the future.