(Finance) – The Russian central bank decided today to keep the reference rate at 16%stating that the current rate of price growth has stopped declining and remains close to the levels of the first quarter of 2024, while domestic demand growth continues to outpace the ability to expand the supply of goods and services.
The Bank of Russia maintains the prospect of increasing the reference rate at the next meeting is open, we read in the statement released at the end of today’s meeting. Furthermore, bringing inflation back to the target level will require a significantly longer period of maintaining tight monetary conditions in the economy than expected in April.
According to the central bank’s forecasts and considering the direction of monetary policy, theinflation annual will return to the target in 2025 and will subsequently stabilize around 4%. In April, seasonally adjusted price growth stood at 5.8% in annualized terms, following 5.7% (on average) in the first quarter of 2024.