PM: BNR likely to cut key rate to less than 3 pct

Newsroom 28/10/2014 | 14:13

Romania’s central bank may cut its main monetary policy rate to less than 3 percent a year in the next few days, Prime Minister Victor Ponta said Tuesday, quoted by Mediafax.

“The national bank’s key interest rate stood at 8.5 percent in 2009. Now, in the next few days probably, it will drop below 3 percent”, the Prime minister-said.

The chief of governments believes this is a good measure for small and medium enterprises, given that they can take out loans at better rates.

The central bank announced in august it lowered its monetary policy rate by a quarter of a point to 3.25 percent.

The growth of the local economy this year will “barely exceed” 1.5 percent of GDP, after gaining 3.6 percent of GDP last year, while the inflation will amount to 2 percent in December, said Lucian Croitoru, counselor of the governor of the National Bank of Romania (BNR) during the first day of the Foreign Investors Summit (FIS),