Romania’s National Bank maintains discretionary monetary board calendar

Romania's National Bank (BNR) decided to keep the monetary policy meetings calendar suspended this year, motivating the economic uncertainties.

BNR has already deferred its first meeting initially planned for January 8.

Falling inflation and sluggish recovery outlook support further monetary policy rate cuts (from 1.5% currently).

"Given the high degree of uncertainty of economic and financial developments, the BNR Board decided to suspend the calendar of monetary policy meetings. The meetings will take place whenever necessary," reads an announcement on the BNR website, quoted by Bankingnews.ro.

The central bank initially adopted this measure in March last year, when the COVID-19 crisis hit Romania.

In its latest inflation forecast, the BNR envisaged 2.5% annual inflation at the end of 2021, which is at the center of its inflation target band. Romania's headline consumer price inflation further eased to 2.1% year-on-year in November from 2.2% yoy in October.

Given the subdued economic recovery and the Government's financing needs, expectations for a monetary policy rate cut at the BNR's next board meeting (expected for January 8) were rising. The BNR made its latest rate cut in August. At that time, it was expecting 2.6% year end inflation in December 2020.

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