September 14 (SeeNews) - North Macedonia's central bank said on Wednesday it decided to raise its policy rate by 0.5 percentage points (pp), to 3%, after keeping it unchanged at 2.5% last month.
The central bank also decided to increase the interest rate on overnight deposits by 0.5 pp to 0.90% and that on the seven-day deposits by 0.5 pp to 0.95%, it said in a press release.
Several important factors were taken into account while making this decision, such as the continuously increasing inflation rate.
The interest rate hikes are expected to spur the growth of bank deposits in the domestic currency denar, the central bank said.
According to the most recent inflation data, the average inflation rate in the January-August period reached 11.6%. The main factor for the growth of the inflation rate was the increase in the import prices of food and energy, the bank said.
The central bank also decided to offer 10 billion denars ($162 million/162 million euro) worth of central bank bills at an auction on Wednesday, unchanged in comparison with the amount offered at the last auction held on August 9.
The central bank's policy rate is the interest rate on the central bank bills. Since the beginning of 2022, the central bank raised its key policy rate four times - in April, May, June and July.
(1 euro = 61.55 denars)