МАКРОЭКОНОМИКА ЦЕНЫ ДВИНУЛИСЬ

В январе подтвердились прогнозы многих аналитиков относительно исчерпанности потенциала дефляции. Экономика постепенно излечивается от этого "недуга".

Одной из самых важных причин инфляции в январе 2003 года, как и в предыдущие годы, было ощутимое увеличение спроса на продовольственные товары во время рождественских и других зимних праздников. Это привело к повышению цен на продукты питания на 2%, а впоследствии обусловило инфляцию в целом. Больше всего подорожали картофель, овощи, фрукты, рыба и молочная продукция. Но статистика прошлых лет подтверждает, что это сезонное и привычное для января явление.

А вот подорожание в январе муки и хлебобулочных изделий нельзя назвать типичным. Этот фактор и определил более высокие темпы роста цен по сравнению с январем прошлого года (1%). Скорее всего, повышение цен объясняется малоутешительными прогнозами урожая зерновых в 2003 году.

Цены на непродовольственные товары почти не изменились. Увеличение акцизного сбора на бензин было уравновешено сезонным снижением спроса на этот товар, вследствие чего цены на него даже снизились.

Услуги в целом подорожали на 0,8%. В основном за счет повышения стоимости некоторых коммунальных услуг.

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В последующие несколько месяцев темпы инфляции, вероятнее всего, будут снижаться за счет стабилизации цен на молочную, плодоовощную прод) кцию и яйца. Исходя из этого, можно предположить, что темпы инфляции не будут превышать 1%.

По материалам еженедельника "Бизнес";

Supplementary texts

Text A

The Limits of Stability

The current government's achievements are many - enough to make Bulgaria's recovery widely cited as a miracle. With the help of a currency board tying the lev to the Deutschemark (and euro), it slammed the brakes on 1997's hyperinflation. It speeded up privatisation, so that 64% of the economy is now in private hands. It forced financial discipline on banks and companies unfamiliar with it. And until recently, it was gaining the trust of foreign investors.

Ten years ago, Bulgaria had much the same starting point as Central Europe. Its six years of botched reform, followed by its 1996 collapse, were a lesson in how to make a mess of transition.

Now, however, the economy has slipped back into recession and exports have tumbled. Premier Ivan Rostov blames that squarely on the Kosovo crisis, which has all but severed Bulgaria's transport links with its major markets, pushing exports down by 19% in April.

The industrial structure that Bulgaria inherited from communism was very similar to that of the Czechs. Around 40% of GDP came from the service sector, around 16% from agriculture and the rest from industry. But the disappearance of West and East European tourists alike battered the service sector. And botched land restitution all but destroyed agriculture. That left Bulgaria over-dependent on cheap commodity exports like steel and fertilisers.

That not only exposes Bulgaria to cyclical prices, it also means that the coun­try's exports depend on cheap labour and cheap energy, and huge amounts of fixed investment. Until 1996, Bulgaria managed a trade surplus largely by controlling prices, by soft lending and by allowing company debts to pile up.

All but a few prices have been liberalised again, and energy prices are nearing world levels. Unhappily, that has combined with low world prices, the loss of Rus­sian and now EU markets, and the persistent rise in real wages, to expose the weak­nesses of Bulgaria's industry. The trade deficit is rising quickly.

From the Business Central Europe www.bcemag.com

Comprehension Questions

1. What are the measures undertaken by the government to curb the recession
in Bulgaria? How successful were they?

2. What did Bulgaria's economy inherit from "communism"?

3. What are the problems faced by Bulgaria at present?

Text B

What has gone wrong?

Expressions like "austerity measures" and "urgently necessary" easilv trio off the tongue of economists talking about troubled countries like Russia or Romania. How economists are calling for urgent austerity measures in Hungary, too.

The problem is the size of Hungary's current-account and budget deficits. Forecasters reckon the current-account deficit will be over 5% of GDP this year, which means it will be on the dividing line between manageable and alarming. Now people are getting worried about the other hole in Hungary's accounts, the budget deficit.

Only three months into the year, the government had already run up 70% of the deficit envisaged for the entire year. Few believe that it has a chance of hitting its 4% target for this year: many say that it will be lucky if the deficit is below 5% of GDP.

What has gone wrong? The government can blame several unforeseen prob­lems, such as the Kosovo war and the damage caused by snow storms and floods ear­lier this year. Inflation has also been below target, which partly explains why tax revenues haven't risen as quickly as planned. More importantly, growth in Germany has been well below forecast, which has hit Hungarian exports.

But the main problem has been wishful thinking. The government's 4-5% growth forecast was optimistic to begin with, and projections for tax revenues were even more outlandish. "Even if we assume a 5% increase in GDP and 10% inflation how could one assume an almost 30% increase in consumption tax?" asks Peter Bi-hari, chief economist at Budapest Bank.

Finance minister Zsigmond Jarai says that the government is determined to stick to the 4% target for its budget deficit. He says that it will be relatively easy to lob F140-50 billion ($170-210m) off spending later in the year, if necessary by skimping on infrastructure spending.

From Business Central Europe www.bcemag.com