December 28 (SeeNews) - Moldova's central bank, BNM, said it decided to maintain its key rate at 6.5%, striving to keep inflation close to the target level, as inflation slowed down.
"The decision was made based on the outcomes of the latest macroeconomic analyses, as well as a result of the short and medium-term inflation forecast adjustment against the background of the latent transmission of monetary policy impulses to inflation," BNM said in a statement late on Wednesday.
BNM also decided to maintain the interest rates on overnight loans at 9.5% per year and on overnight deposits at 3.5% per year.
The central bank maintained the required reserves ratio from financial means attracted in local and non-convertible currency at 40.0% of the base and the required reserves ratio from financial means attracted in freely convertible currency at 14.0% of the base.
Moldova's annual consumer price inflation decelerated to 7.3% in November from 7.9% in October, according to the latest data available from the country's statistical office.
"Provided there are no considerable deviations from the latest BNM forecast, the annual inflation rate will return within the set variation interval of the 5.0% target, in the first quarter of 2018," BNM said.
The central bank now projects 6.5% inflation in 2017 and 4.0% in 2018.
Moldova's consumer prices rose 6.4% in 2016, after increasing 9.7% in the previous year.
BNM last revised its key monetary policy rate in December, lowering it by 0.5%, to 6.5%.
BNM will hold its next rate-setting meeting on January 30, 2018,
(1 euro = 20.3478 Moldovan lei)