Central banker: Lower inflation may lead to early key rate cut

SOCHI, Oct 10 (PRIME) -- The Russian central bank will reduce its 2019 inflation forecast on October 25 and plans to ease the monetary policy faster than planned due to the trend, Central Bank Chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina said on the sidelines of the Finopolis forum on Thursday.

“Although this meeting will not be a key meeting, we will publish an adjusted forecast as an exemption since we are preparing the Key Areas of the Monetary Policy at the same time,” Nabiullina said. “Inflation is indeed below our forecast, we will adjust the inflation forecast until the end of the year to reduce it, will publish it after the meeting of the board of directors takes place.

“We will assess pro-inflationary and disinflationary risks. As we see now, real inflation and stable trends in it will most probably allow us to ease the monetary policy faster than we used to expect before.”

The central bank is considering various scenarios of the key rate reduction for the period until the end of the year, Nabiullina said, when asked whether two more reductions of the key rate are seen as the main scenario for 2019.

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