2024-09-19T14:37:00+03:00 Finance 2024-09-24T04:00:01+03:00

Ukrainian news

NBU retains discount rate at 13%

NBU retains discount rate at 13%

The Board of the National Bank has decided to retain the discount rate at the level of 13%.

This is stated in the message of the NBU, the Ukrainian News agency reports.

In August, consumer inflation rose to 7.5% in annual terms, which was close to the NBU's July forecast.

Fundamental price pressures, as measured by core inflation, also increased (6.5% p/p).

The increase in consumer prices was due to the impact of this year's worse harvests, an increase in business expenses for raw food materials, energy and labor costs, as well as the effects of the weakening of the hryvnia exchange rate in previous months.

However, inflationary expectations remained quite stable.

Inflation will grow moderately in the coming months due to the expansion of aggregate demand as a result of budget expenditures, increased business costs for labor and electricity, and higher excise taxes.

However, the balanced monetary policy of the NBU and the reduction of external price pressure will contribute to a gradual slowdown of inflation and its return to the 5% target in the coming years.

In order to achieve the goal, the NBU will, in particular, maintain a controlled situation on the foreign exchange market.

In addition, the dynamics of individual components of the basic consumer price index were affected by the weakening of the hryvnia exchange rate.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, in March 2021 the NBU raised the discount 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 discount 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%.