MINSK, August 26 (RIA Novosti) – Russia has increased its inflation forecast for 2014 to 7.2 percent from the original 6 percent, Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said Tuesday.
“We’ll put the range at 7-7.5 percent, and to be more exact, then at 7.2 percent,” Ulyukayev said.
Earlier today, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development’s Macroeconomic Forecasting Department director, Oleg Zasov, said the ministry raised its estimate for the country’s inflation rate for 2015 from 5 percent to 6.5 percent.
“We increased the prognosis on inflation for next year to 6.5 percent for the base scenario,” Zasov said.
“[Western] sanctions against Russia and our country’s countermeasures played a defining role in this,” the director added.
Back in March, in response to Crimea’s reunification with Russia, the United States and the European Union introduced targeted sanctions against Russia.
As the Ukrainian crisis escalated, the United States introduced several new rounds of sanctions targeting Russia’s defense, energy and banking sectors, and persuaded its allies to add Russian individuals and entities to their own blacklists. As a result, Norway, Canada, Australia and Japan backed the US sanctions.
Moscow has repeatedly called the language of sanctions counterproductive and stated that Russia is not party to Ukraine’s domestic conflict.
In August, Russia introduced protective measures banning the import of agricultural and food products from countries that had imposed sanctions on Russia for a year.
