Week’s balance: Cabinet vows to create jobs, IMF promises decision soon, and hryvnia goes through storm

soc-set.com

The National Bank went on the interbank market several times, selling foreign currency to support the falling hryvnia; the Government says it is up to create new jobs to fight unemployment and poverty; and the International Monetary Fund has promised to hold a meeting in the coming weeks on the allocation of another bailout tranche - these are the major economic events of the past week.

Both the Ukrainian markets and experts started to wake up from the protracted holiday period, returning to a usual working mode.

Economic experts first noted the landmark report by the State Statistics Service on the fall in inflation in 2016 to its 12.4% low, which is the best figure over the past three years.

For comparison, in 2015 the inflation was reported at 43.3%, and in 2014 it was 25%. According to the chief economist at Dragon Capital, Olena Belan, one of the key factors of growth of consumer prices in the past year were the utility tariffs rising by 47% by 2015. Over the past three years the gas price for Ukrainian households grew 8.6 times.

According to expert estimates, the cost of central heating during this period increased fivefold (including by 88% in 2016), while the price of electricity - threefold (by 60% in 2016).

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