National Bank of Romania maintains reference interest rate

The National Bank of Romania has decided to main the monetary policy interest rate at 6.5% a year.

Mihai Pelin, 16.01.2025, 13:50

The National Bank is maintaining its cautious attitude and will keep its monetary policy interest rate unchanged at 6.5% a year, in the context of domestic and international uncertainties. After two successive cuts, the reference interest rate has remained unchanged since August, amid efforts to bring down the inflation rate. The central bank says the inflation rose in the last quarter of last year more than expected. The Bank also decided to maintain the level of interest rates at which commercial banks can borrow from the National Bank or which they receive for deposits with the Central Bank at 7.5% and, respectively, 5.5% a year. The current levels were also maintained of the rates of the minimum obligatory reserves for lending institutions’ liabilities in lei and hard currency.

Specialists are not surprised by these decisions, which they had anticipated, and believe the National Bank will continue to act cautiously so as to keep the inflation in check and not to hinder the otherwise low level of economic growth. Financial analyst Dragoş Cabat has more details:

“The decision is absolutely normal given that we are going through a period of great uncertainty at home and internationally. Romania still has no budget, no plans to cut the budget deficit. Public debts continues to rise from one month to the next precisely so as to cover the budget deficit. Romania is also faced with a trade deficit. We don’t know whether taxes will go up and how public spending will decrease.”

The inflation rate went up in the last months of 2024. The economic growth rate is very low, the war in Ukraine wages on and there is political uncertainty in the European Union in several important countries, says Dragoş Cabat. He believes the chances that the Central Bank may cut the monetary policy interest rate this year are quite low. The National Bank blames the increase in the inflation rate above expectations mainly on the rising cost of fuel, especially as a result of the appreciation of the US dollar on international markets, and less so on the rise in the cost of food, following a severe drought last summer. According to the latest data, the annual inflation rate will go down in the first quarter of 2025 but will still be higher than expected.

The Central Bank’s experts emphasise that significant uncertainty and risks connected to the evolution of the inflation rate will be the result of the future fiscal and income policy, following the implementation of a recent package of tax and budget measures aimed at fiscal consolidation, as well as of the situation on the labour market and the wages dynamics. There will still be significant uncertainty related to the evolution of energy and food prices and the future quotation of crude oil amid geopolitical tensions. We recall that Romania ended 2024 with an inflation rate of 5.1%.