The president of the National Bank of Poland (NBP) Adam Glapiński said that “without the war in Ukraine, inflation in Poland could be around 6-7% today. Another reason is sanctions. All this creates a spiral of increasing prices”, said Glapiński.
According to him, the estimates indicate that inflation increased by around 5% due to the war in Ukraine. Glapiński also admitted that he had talked with the president of the US central bank and that the federal reserve system is ready to support Poland in any possible situation.
During the press conference, Adam Glapiński reminded the public that the Monetary Policy Council raised interest rates, including the NBP reference rate, by 1%.
“This is the seventh rate- hike, these actions will bring the expected but not immediate result because the impact of monetary policy on the economy always takes a lot of time; usually it is several, most often five quarters. NBP research shows that the strongest effect occurs after 5-7 quarters”, said the head of the central bank.
However, he stated that currently, as a result of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, inflation hits very strongly upward with an increase in the prices of agricultural and energy commodities and causes disturbances in world trade. According to Glapiński, the increase in inflation is noticeable not only in Poland.
“This is a global effect, the first effects of this can be seen in the March data. In the eurozone, inflation hit an all-time high of 7.5%, the highest value for euro since ever. In some eurozone countries, inflation is higher than in Poland, in Lithuania and Estonia it reached approximately 15%”, stated the president of the NBP.
The head of the central bank emphasized that he was not able to precisely assess to what extent exactly geopolitical factors increased inflation.
“Rough estimates may indicate that this impact was significant and may even reach 4-5% if we take into account previous actions and events, geopolitics in general, it can be even 5% of the total 11%”, assessed Glapiński.
Arkadiusz Słomczyński