Annual inflation rate in Russia can fall to 12 per cent by april 2003, according to IMF

The annual inflation rate in Russia can fall to 12 per cent by April 2003. Head of the International Monetary Fund /IMF/ permanent delegation in Russia Paul Thomson expressed this opinion at a press conference on Thursday.

He considers it possible only if Russia's tax and budgetary policy remains strong, and there will be no sharp increase in budgetary expenses at the end of the current year. In this situation the target inflation rate set at 10 per cent for the end of the next year does not look "sufficiently ambitious", according to Thomson.

Moreover, one of the IMF latest reports devoted to trends in macroeconomic and economic policy point out that the process of inflation decrease in Russia is much slower than in other CIS countries.