Annual inflation rate drops to 3.7 per cent in Moldova in last April

Chisinau, 11 May /MOLDPRES/ - The annual inflation rate continues to drop quickly and decreased to 3.7 per cent in last April, against 6.5 per cent in January 2018. The statistics made public today thus confirms the forecasts by the National Bank of Moldova (BNM), which expects the consumer price index to diminish continuously.    
The National Statistics Bureau (BNS) informed that the annual inflation for food products in April stood at 6.8 per cent, for non-food products – 2.4 per cent and for the services provided to residents – 0.4 per cent.  
At the same time, the consumer price index was 100.5 in April 2018 against the month before. A 0.5-per cent increase in the average consumer prices was triggered by a 0.9-per cent rise in prices for food products and a 0.3-per cent increase for non-food goods.
At a recent presentation of the report on inflation No 2, the first deputy governor of the National Bank of Moldova, Vladimir Munteanu, said that the annual inflation rate would drop from 4.7 per cent, recorded in March 2018, to 2.2 per cent, on average, for the fourth quarter of this year, under the lower limit of the variation interval of plus/minus 1.5 percentage points from the inflation target of fine per cent. The annual average value will return to the target variation interval in the first half of 2019.  
BNM revised downwards the forecast of the inflation rate for 2018 at a yearly average of 3.3 per cent and increased the provisions for the next year to 4.9 per cent, against 4.7 percent, as it had earlier anticipated.  
(Reporter V. Bercu, editor A. Raileanu)