September 5 (SeeNews) - Moldova's central bank decided to maintain its key rate at 6.5%, striving to keep inflation close to the target level, it said.
"The decision was adopted on the basis of the macroeconomic analysis and the assumptions made in the new medium-term inflation forecasting round," the central bank, BNM, said in a statement late on Tuesday.
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.
However, the central bank decided to lift the required reserves ratio on deposits in local and non-convertible currency to 42.5% of the base from previous 40.0%, but kept the required reserves ratio deposits in freely convertible currency at 14.0% of the base.
Moldova's annual consumer price inflation decelerated to 3.0% in July, from 3.2% in the previous month.
In August, BNM lowered its 2018 inflation projection by 0.1 percentage points to 3.2%. In 2019, consumer prices in Moldova are expected to rise by 4.9%, at the same rate as projected earlier. Moldova’s central bank targets inflation of 5% plus or minus 1.5 pp.
BNM last revised its key monetary policy rate in December, lowering it by 0.5%, to 6.5%.
(1 euro= 19.3812 Moldovan lei)