The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has set a target inflation rate at 5% from December 2019.
This is stipulated in the NBU’s monetary policy strategy approved by the NBU council in July and posted on the regulator’s website on Tuesday.
“The best benchmark for inflation (the Consumer Price Index year-over-year) … is determined by the NBU at 5% ± 1 pp. The phase of reducing the inflation target from the current level to 5% will take place until December 2019. And since December 2019, this goal set at % will be constant and can only be revised downwards if the volatility of the hryvnia forex rate reduces, reference prices change and the effects of the convergence of the Ukrainian economy are lowered to the level of the countries that are major trading partners,” the document says.
According to the strategy, in certain periods, inflation may deviate from the established benchmark because of the influence of factors not subject to the NBU’s monetary policy. For example, it could be a change in commodity prices or a deviation of administratively regulated prices from the previously declared level. However, the NBU, as before, will use monetary tools to return inflation to the target numbers, it said.
The document also stipulates the application of the interest rate corridor for overnight credit and deposit transactions to manage short-term interest rates of the interbank credit market by limiting their fluctuations around the key interest rate. It also provides for the possibility of applying differentiated mandatory reserve requirements to improve the effectiveness of regulating the liquidity of the banking system and encouraging banks to raise funds primarily in the national currency and for a longer period.
The NBU monetary policy strategy confirms the need for institutional independence of the regulator. It says that the NBU should avoid any form of fiscal dominance, including direct or indirect support of budget expenditures.
As reported, the document is the successor of the NBU’s monetary policy strategy for 2016-2020, which was approved by the board of the central bank in August 2015.
The new monetary policy strategy retains key elements of the inflation targeting regime, defines the main objectives of the monetary policy, the principles, tools and directions of their evolution for the medium term. At the same time, the specifics of the application of the monetary policy tool will be reviewed annually, taking into account the state and risks of the external and internal macroeconomic environment, and will be approved by the NBU Council in the annual Monetary Policy Fundamentals.
