President Shavkat Mirziyoyev ordered to cut inflation to 9.5% in 2022, said the head of State Budget Department at the Ministry of Finance, Jamshid Abruev at the presentation of the draft Citizens’ Budget on Friday.
According to him, inflation is projected to drop to 13% next year, and to 11% in 2021, while the 2019 inflation rate projected at 15.5% at the year-end.
The day before, Shavkat Mirziyoyev chaired a government meeting devoted to the macroeconomic figures, fiscal policy, the fulfillment of the state budget, and the discussion of parameters for 2020, where he noted that systemic problems in the economic sectors and the high inflation rate, which cannot be contained is negatively affecting the purchasing power of the vast public.
Earlier, the Central Bank announced plans to switch over to inflation targeting in Q4 of 2019, fixing 5% permanent inflation target as of 2023 and an intermediate target in 2021 at below 10%.
There are reasons to believe that the real inflation is higher than that announced by the Central Bank, with the current high inflation rate in the last three years is largely caused by the doubling of the money supply for budget purposes and to finance the populist infrastructure improvement programs.
The purchasing power of the most vulnerable people - pensioners, doctors, teachers and other employees of the budget-financed organizations has plummeted, due to their allowances, set by the central authorities, failing to keep up with the inflation rate.
