July 4 (SeeNews) - The net profit of Romania’s central bank, BNR, plunged to 124.6 million lei ($30.8 million/27.2 million euro) in 2016 from 783.4 million lei a year earlier, the bank said.
The drop was mainly due to a 14% smaller operating profit of 771.9 million lei in 2016 as well as expenses related to unfavourable differences in the revaluation of foreign currency assets and liabilities of 646 million lei, almost six times higher than in 2015, BNR said in its 2016 annual report published on Monday.
The absence of monetary policy operations generated a loss of 53.4 million lei in 2016, down 16% compared to the 2015 loss, it added.
At its last monetary policy meeting on Monday, BNR held its key rate unchanged at record low 1.75%. BNR last changed its monetary policy rate in May 2015, cutting it by 25 basis points.
According to the law, 80% of BNR's 2016 profit went into the state budget, 10% was allocated to statutory reserves, while the remainder is to be distributed in 2017.
(1 euro = 4.5788 Romanian lei)