NBU keeps key policy rate at 15.5%
The Board of the National Bank has decided to keep the key policy rate at 15.5%.
It was reported by the NBU, the Ukrainian News agency reports.
It is noted that inflation is declining, but underlying price pressures remain persistent, and expectations show no signs of sustained improvement.
Consumer inflation slowed to 11.9% yoy in September.
According to the NBU, this trend continued in October. Although the growth rate of consumer prices decelerated ahead of the NBU's July forecast, this was primarily due to an increase in the supply of vegetables due to better harvests than last year.
In contrast, core inflation declined at a more moderate pace (to 11.0% yoy in September). Underlying price pressures remained resilient, in part due to the persistence of high business costs for labor and energy. As a result, price growth rates for a number of core inflation components declined slowly (processed foods) or did not decline at all (services).
Inflationary expectations of most groups of respondents did not improve over the last quarter (with the exception of banks).
Although financial analysts' expectations were relatively close to the NBU's forecasts, the expectations of other groups of respondents remained elevated.
And households' attention to the topic of inflation has increased, as evidenced by the statistics of Internet searches.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, in March 2021, the NBU increased the key policy rate to 6.5%, in April - to 7%, in July - to 8%, in September - to 8.5%, in December - to 9%, in January 2022 - to 10%, in June 2022 - to 25%.
In July 2023, the NBU reduced the key policy rate from 25% to 22%, in September - to 20%, in October - to 16%, in December - to 15%, in March 2024 - to 14.5%, in April - to 13.5%, in June - to 13%, in December 2024 - to 13.5%, in January 2025 - to 14.5%, in March - to 15.5%.
At the same time, the Board of Directors of the Bank of russia decided to cut the key policy rate from 18% to 17% per annum at its previous meeting.