You're reading: NBU Monetary Committee with one voice lowers refinancing rate

The Monetary Policy Committee of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) in one voice decided to lower refinancing rate following its meeting on July 17.

In particular, eight members of the committee voted for decrease of the refinancing rate by 0.5 percentage points (p.p.) – to 17 percent, one member voted for 1 percentage point – to 16.5 percent, reads a protocol of the meeting.

In the course of the discussion, members of the committee said that now macroeconomic conditions were favorable to continue easing of the monetary policy launched by the NBU in April.

According to the basic forecasts, the level of inflation is to reach a target of 5 percent in 2020 due to step-by-step reduction of the percentage point, they said.

The members of the committee said that further growing threats for macrofinancing stability remain to be the main risk for a target scenario so that the central bank finds it difficult to estimate and prevent it due to monetary decisions.

“First of all, such risk is connected with a possible delay in the key reforms or the steps to set off previous achievements, in particular, due to court and legislative decisions, which can make Ukrainian economy more vulnerable and hamper cooperation with the IMF [International Monetary Fund],” reads the report.