Report: Sberbank CEO says sees cbank’s key rate at 8.5% max

MOSCOW, Dec 6 (PRIME) -- The central bank may raise the key rate by one percentage point to 8.5% since it is too low to fight inflation, and will start cutting it until the end of 2022, Russia’s top bank Sberbank CEO German Gref said in an interview with the Rossiya 24 channel on Monday.

“Today’s rate of 7.5% … is still a bit low. Therefore, it is more likely that the central bank will raise the rate further. It is impossible to predict by how much today; our estimate is maybe up to 1 percentage point … The rise of up to another 1 percentage point should be the last,” Gref said.

“We expect that the horizon for such growth to remain until the first half of next year, then inflation should fall. I hope that the central bank’s key rate will be cut until the end of the year.”

According to the Economic Development Ministry, Russia’s annual inflation accelerated to 8.38% on November 29 from 8.05% a week earlier.

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