The International Monetary Fund (IMF) considers it necessary to reconsider the forecasts of the National Bank of Azerbaijan on basic inflation.

Mediamax reports referring Trend that the Deputy Director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department Vitali Kramarenko stated following the visit to Azerbaijan that “accurate vision of the government and the National Bank of Azerbaijan concerning the speeds of inflation increase will be formed after the realization of anti-inflation measures”.

“The NBA and the government are thinking over how to realize those measures yet, not to let acceleration of the speed of inflation growth take place. The government should control the situation, but to preserve one-digit inflation will be difficult”, Kramarenko stated.

“We believe that if the Azerbaijani government does not take up measures to slow down the speeds of increase of budget expenditures, they will reach such volumes that it will be difficult to preserve budget stability”, the IMF representative thinks.

According to him, the Azerbaijani government plans to take up the process of slowing down the speeds of increase of budget expenditures starting from 2008, and the most active part of the process will take place in 2009-2010. The IMF Mission believes that fiscal adjustment should be started earlier.