Inflation in Ukraine slowed to 0.7% in December 2015 from 2% in November, the State Statistics Service reported on Wednesday.

The service said last year consumer prices in the country grew by 43.3%, while in 2014 they rose by 24.9% and in 2013 – by 0.5%.

In annual terms (compared to the same period of 2014) lower inflation was recorded in February 2015.

Ukraine's national budget for 2015 initially was built on the optimistic scenario foreseeing the decline of real GDP by 5.5% with inflation of 26.7% and growth of nominal GDP to UAH 1.85 trillion. However, after the revision on September 17, the budget was based on a decline of 8.9% of real GDP with inflation of 45.8%. Later the forecast for GDP decline was worsened to 10-11.5%.

In 2016, the government and the National Bank of Ukraine project that inflation will be 12% and GDP will grow by 2%.

The State Statistics Service said that prices of food and soft drinks grew by 1.7% in December compared to November 2015. The largest rise in the prices of eggs by 12.4% was seen. Prices of vegetables, butter, milk, grain products rose by 4.6-4.1%, prices of sour cream, sugar, cheese, dairy products, sunflower oil and bread grew by 2.9-1.4%. The prices of pork and rice fell by 2.1% and 2%. Prices of alcohol and tobacco fell by 1.9%, which is linked to the decline in the prices of tobacco by 3.4%. Prices of alcohol rose by 0.5%.

Clothes and shoes prices fell by 1.7% last month, including a decline of 1.9% in prices of clothes and 1.5% fall in prices of shoes.

Prices grew by 1.1% in the healthcare area, the cost of hospital services rose by 2.3%, prices of pharmaceutical products were up by 1%, and in-patient services grew by 0.7%.

Prices of transport fell by 0.1%, as prices of fuel and lubricants decreased by 0.6%, while the cost of transport services grew by 0.3%.

The cost of educational services rose by 0.2% mainly due to a rise in fees for children in preschool institutions by 0.9%.