Romania’s central bank maintains key interest rate at 2.5 pct in line with expectations

The National Bank of Romania (BNR), Romania’s central bank, decided on Tuesday to maintain the monetary interest rate to its current level of 2.5 percent for the seventh time in a row, in line with economists’ expectations.

On May 7, 2018, the central bank raised the monetary interest rate from 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent, the highest level since February 2015, as a consequence of upward revision of the inflation forecast.

“In its meeting of 2 April 2019, the Board of the National Bank of Romania decided the following: to keep the monetary policy rate at 2.50 percent per annum; to leave unchanged the deposit facility rate at 1.50 percent per annum and the lending facility rate at 3.50 percent per annum; to maintain the existing levels of minimum reserve requirement ratios on both leu- and foreign currency-denominated liabilities of credit institutions,” the central bank said in a press release.