Inflation will hit 44% in Ukraine this year, as the embattled economy has seen prices soar amid economic collapse. Consumer prices have hit eye-watering levels in 2015, according to the country’s central bank governor. Inflation averaged 24.9% in 2014, Yahoo reported. Valeria Gontareva, of the National Bank of Ukraine, said authorities were aiming to get inflation to around 5% by 2019. The war-torn economy, which has been plunged into crisis following conflict with neighboring giant Russia, will also start to gradually lift capital controls as it begins to receive disbursements of bail-out cash from international lenders, said Gontareva. Ukraine is set to receive around $9 billion in rescue cash in 2016, including $4.5 billion from the International Monetary Fund, $1.5 billion from the EU, and $1 billion loan guarantee from the United States, which will be released in the first quarter of next year. The economy has also lumbered under capital controls which limit the purchasing of foreign exchange in a bid to protect the collapsing value of the hryvnia.
