OREANDA-NEWS  The increase in the key rate of the Bank of Russia is already affecting inflation in the country: in December it slowed down and in January the statistics are also encouraging, but high price expectations of citizens and businesses are still worrying the regulator, Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

Since July, in order to combat accelerating inflation, the regulator began to raise the key rate - at first only by 1 percentage point, but a month later, in August, the Central Bank sharply raised the rate at an extraordinary meeting - by 3.5 percentage points against the background of the fall in the ruble exchange rate. In autumn, the regulator added a total of 3 percentage points, and in December - another 1 percentage point, bringing the figure to 16%. According to Rosstat, in December, annual inflation slowed for the first time since April and amounted to 7.42% at the end of the year.

"Our monetary policy is aimed at curbing inflation and bringing it back to our 4% target. We raised the key rate for this purpose. In our opinion, the effect is already showing... We see that in December the current rate of price growth became lower than in November, and in January the statistics are also encouraging," Nabiullina said.
According to the latest data, Russians' inflation expectations for the year ahead slowed sharply in January to 12.7% from December's 14.2%, although they are still higher than November levels. At the same time, the price expectations of enterprises increased by 1.2 points in January, to 24.2 points.