The State Statistics Institute announced on Thursday that Ukraine’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell by 15.1% in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period of the previous year.
Ukraine’s Finance Minister Sergiy Marchenko told AFP in May that he expects a decline “from 45% to 50%” this year. By contrast, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts a 35% drop.
The country’s annual inflation rate reached 18% in May, although it fell to 2.7% in May, according to data released by the government agency on Thursday. Food prices continued to rise, with an emphasis on staples such as rice (+14.3) and fruit (+11.5).
According to the forecasts of the central bank of Ukraine, the inflation rate could reach 20% annually by the end of 2022.
On June 2, the central bank significantly increased the key interest rate from 10% to 25% in an effort to contain inflation and protect the national currency, the hryvnia, from the economic repercussions of the Russian invasion. The Ukrainian currency was around 29.5 hryvnia against the dollar on Thursday, a relatively stable level since the beginning of the Russian occupation.
source: Noticias
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