Published
05/06/2026, 10:03In Kyrgyzstan, amid a moderate slowdown in inflation, public inflation expectations are rising—a signal that could prove decisive for price trends in 2026.
According to the monetary policy report, annual inflation stood at 9.3% in the fourth quarter of 2025, up from 8.9% a quarter earlier, and reached 9.4% in December. However, the key shift occurred not so much in prices themselves as in perceptions of their future growth.
Businesses’ inflation expectations at the end of the year remained at the previous quarter’s level and were even lower than actual inflation. In other words, businesses do not anticipate a sharp acceleration in prices and maintain relatively subdued forecasts.
At the same time, the general public showed the opposite trend. According to surveys by the National Statistics Committee and the World Bank, households’ expectations regarding price growth have risen significantly. The share of respondents expecting inflation to accelerate over the next 12 months has increased, although their estimates themselves remain below current actual levels.
However, it is consumer sentiment that most often translates into actual demand and, consequently, into additional pressure on prices.
The formation of inflation expectations in 2025 was influenced by several factors at once:
Regulatory policy also provided an additional boost to expectations. For example, the ban on service charges in the food service industry starting in 2026 led to an advance rise in prices as early as December 2025—businesses began passing on costs to service prices in advance.
In March 2026, inflation in Kyrgyzstan reached 11%, while the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic’s (NBKR) medium-term inflation target was 5–7%.
