NBU raises key policy rate to 9% per annum

The Board of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has decided to raise the key policy rate to 9% per annum from current 8.5%, the NBU said on its website.

"The Board of the National Bank of Ukraine has decided to raise the key policy rate to 9% per annum. The decision is aimed at neutralizing the impact of additional pro-inflationary risks, improving inflation expectations, and ensuring steady disinflation toward the target of 5%," the regulator said.

If pro-inflationary factors continue to materialize, the NBU stands ready to raise its key policy rate at the next Board meetings on monetary policy issues.

The NBU said that the inflation surge has passed its peak, but inflation is declining slower than expected. The growth in consumer prices decelerated to 10.9% year-over-year in October. The NBU estimates inflation continued to slow in November. This was supported by the vanished effect of the last year's low comparison base, better harvests gathered this year, administrative decisions on public utility rates, and the impact of previous decisions to tighten the monetary policy.

The current inflation trajectory remains higher than expected in the October macroeconomic forecast of the NBU. In particular, second-round effects from rises in food and energy prices put higher pressures on prices of an increasingly wider list of consumer-basket goods and services. Inflation is also fueled by businesses' higher expenses on logistics and wages.

Source: www.en.interfax.com.ua