{"id":21469,"date":"2023-04-24T14:05:22","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T14:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/russian-central-bank-to\/"},"modified":"2023-04-24T14:08:55","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T14:08:55","slug":"russian-central-bank-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/russian-central-bank-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian central bank to hold rate at 7.5%, inflation pressure looming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Elena Fabrichnaya and Alexander Marrow<\/p>\n<p>MOSCOW (Reuters) &#8211;     The Russian central bank is expected to hold rates at 7.5% on Friday, a Reuters poll showed, with the risk of inflationary pressure picking up limiting the bank&#8217;s room for manoeuvre on any monetary easing. <\/p>\n<p>Last year, the bank gradually reversed a late February emergency rate hike to 20% after Moscow despatched tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine, which led to increasingly wide-ranging Western sanctions being imposed in response.<\/p>\n<p>The key rate has stayed at 7.5% since the last cut in September, with inflation risks, such as a weaker rouble, a widening budget deficit and labour shortages, leading the Bank of Russia to warn that rate hikes are more likely than cuts.<\/p>\n<p>All 23 analysts and economists polled by Reuters predicted that Russia would keep its benchmark rate unchanged again on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The central bank will likely signal a readiness to hike later in the year, said Mikhail Vasilyev, chief analyst at Sovcombank, forecasting the year-end key rate at 9%.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Current inflation dynamics do not call for a rate hike, but pro-inflationary risks are increasing,&#8221; he said. &#8220;In this situation the central bank will likely again adopt a watchful position.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>The rouble is around 5% weaker against the dollar since the bank&#8217;s last meeting in mid-March, he said, while labour shortages are the most significant risk. <\/p>\n<p>The situation is quite unusual, said Olga Belenkaya of Finam brokerage, with annual inflation below 3% due to the high base effect of last year&#8217;s price rises, but the risks of higher inflation in the future increasing. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The intrigue, in our view, is whether the tight signal of the last two meetings will remain unchanged or whether its tone will be adjusted,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>As of April 17, annual inflation was running at 2.82%, according to the economy ministry, well below the central bank&#8217;s 4% target. But the bank still expects inflation to end the year at 5%-7%. <\/p>\n<p>Governor Elvira Nabiullina last week said inflationary risks must decrease in order to create room for interest rate cuts.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya; Additional reporting and writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Alison Williams)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/russian-central-bank-to\/people-walk-past-the-central-bank-headquarters-in-moscow-russia\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3N0F3-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3N0F3-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Elena Fabrichnaya and Alexander Marrow MOSCOW (Reuters) &#8211; The Russian central bank is expected to hold rates at 7.5% on Friday, a Reuters poll showed, with the risk of inflationary pressure picking up limiting the bank&#8217;s room for manoeuvre on any monetary easing. Last year, the bank gradually reversed a late February emergency rate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":21470,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-economy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3N0F3-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21471,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21469\/revisions\/21471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}