The Board of Directors of the National Bank of Romania, meeting today, February 13, 2024, decided to maintain the monetary policy interest rate at the level of 71% per annum.
At the same time, the NBR decided to maintain the interest rate for the lending facility (Lombard) at 8% per year and the interest rate on the deposit facility at 6% per year;
Maintaining the current levels of minimum reserve requirements for lei and foreign currency liabilities of credit institutions.
The annual inflation rate decreased to 6.61 percent in December 2023, below the forecast level, from 6.72 percent in November, amid the continued slowdown in the growth of processed food and energy prices, which outpaced the significant re-amplification of the annual dynamics of fuel prices, due to a base effect.
For the entire fourth quarter of 2023, the annual inflation rate accelerated its decline more than anticipated, decreasing by 2.22 percentage points (from 8.83 percent in September), as the dynamics of food and energy prices continued to decline relatively rapidly, and the inflationary base effect in the fuel segment was fully offset by the deceleration in the increase in administered prices and the price of tobacco products.
At the same time, the annual adjusted CORE2 inflation rate intensified its downward trend in the fourth quarter of 2023, falling to 8.4 percent in December, from 11.3 percent in September, amid broader disinflationary base effects, the decrease in agri-food commodity prices and the measure capping the trade mark-up on basic food products, but also in the context of subdued consumer demand and lower import price dynamics. The impact of these factors was only slightly mitigated by the transfer of cost increases to the prices of some services driven by the increase in the gross minimum wage, as well as by the temporary worsening of short-term inflation expectations.
The annual inflation rate calculated on the basis of the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP – an indicator of inflation for the EU Member States) decreased to 7.0 percent in December 2023, from 9.2 percent in September. At the same time, the average annual CPI inflation rate decreased in December 2023 to 10.4 percent, from 12.6 percent in September. In turn, the average annual inflation rate calculated on the basis of the HICP decreased in December to 9.7 percent, from 11.4 percent in September.
