Inflation holds steady in July

Latest reading: Inflation remained at June’s 11.8% in July, marking the joint-highest rate since August 2023. As a result, inflation remained well above the Central Bank’s medium-term target of 5.0%. Looking at the details of the release, price growth accelerated in food and non-food products, offsetting stronger cost pressures for paid services. As a result, the trend pointed up, with annual average inflation rising to 9.7% in July (June: 9.4%). Finally, consumer prices increased 0.72% over the previous month in July, moderating from the 0.85% rise logged in June. July's result marked the weakest reading since September 2024.

Panelist insight: Commenting on the outlook, Basak Edizgil and Clemens Grafe, analysts at Goldman Sachs, stated: “Looking ahead, we expect inflation momentum to pick up in August, driven by FX pass-through and the electricity tariff hikes. We expect headline inflation to peak in September […]. Despite the sharp Tenge depreciation in recent weeks, we think the downside risk to our forecast has increased from a faster decline in food inflation than we assumed. Our forecast already incorporated sizeable Tenge depreciation through 2025. Moreover, we think that the recent volatility was driven by temporary factors, and Tenge depreciation now appears overdone considering relatively strong fundamentals.”

How should you choose a forecaster if some are too optimistic while others are too pessimistic? FocusEconomics collects Kazakhstani inflation projections for the next ten years from a panel of 22 analysts at the leading national, regional and global forecast institutions. These projections are then validated by our in-house team of economists and data analysts and averaged to provide one Consensus Forecast you can rely on for each indicator. By averaging all forecasts, upside and downside forecasting errors tend to cancel each other out, leading to the most reliable inflation forecast available for Kazakhstani inflation.

Download one of our sample reports to visualize what a Consensus Forecast is and see our Kazakhstani inflation projections.

Want to get access to the full dataset of Kazakhstani inflation forecasts? Send an email to info@focus-economics.com.