Macedonian Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski told reporters on Wednesday he expected inflation to be below 3 percent in the coming months. Speaking after a conference on formalizing the country’s informal economy, the Prime Minister said he expected a similar rate of annual inflation as well, which was within the projections.
“In the food sector, last year there was a Christmas basket, a January basket and it will be the same in April. I estimate that we will move within the projection of below 3% at the level of annual inflation this year. When we compare the rate, it is more or less the same as in the region. Except in neighboring Serbia where it is 2.2 – 2.3 because they have a measure, that measure with a limit on product prices.
The first moment they abandon that measure, then all this will level out and suddenly they will have a peak, because we saw it a year before they implemented it and that is why we decided to fight inflation through other mechanisms.
As for the other months, I expect the inflation to be below 3%. Let’s say there are countries in Europe such as Romania, where inflation in January is 9.8%, there is Turkey where inflation is double-digit, over 30%, neighboring Bulgaria, Croatia, to name a few, a large number of examples in Europe, where inflation is much higher than what is here. I expect our inflation this year to be below 3% on an annual basis, that is, within the framework of what we are projecting,” said PM Mickoski.
