October 31 (SeeNews) - Albania’s central bank said on Wednesday it will keep its key repo rate unchanged at 6.0% because of the positive trends in the country's economy demonstrated in the first nine months of the year.
“Economic growth in 2007 is expected to meet the target of 6.0%. The consumer price index stood at low levels in most of the months. The average inflation during the first nine months was 2.7%, which is lower that the target of 3.0%,” Bank of Albania governor Ardian Fullani said in a statement issued after a regular meeting of the bank's supervisory board.
So far this year the Bank of Albania has changed twice the rate, which it uses in one-week repo deals with commercial banks. In July and September it raised the rate by 0.25 percentage points each time. The two main reasons for the rate hikes have been rising energy prices worldwide and the efforts of the Albanian government to keep the inflation in check.
Albania's average annual inflation rate for last year is estimated at 2.36%, compared to 2.4% in 2005.