The base rate applied on the main short-term monetary policy operations was set at 20% a year, down 1.5% percentage points. The interest rate on overnight loans will be 22% annually, while on overnight deposits - 18% annually, also down 1.5% percentage points, as the Executive Board of the National Bank of Moldova decided on December 5, IPN reports.

In a news conference, the central bank’s governor Octavian Armașu said that it was decided to diminish the required reserves ratio of funds attracted in Moldovan lei and in non-convertible currency from 40% to 37% of the calculation base for December 16, 2022 - January 15, 2023 and from 37% to 34% of the calculation base for January 16, 2023 – February 15, 2023. The Board also decided to maintain the required reserves ratio of funds attracted in freely convertible currency at the level of 45% of the calculation base.

“The NBM decided to resume the measures to relax the monetary policy following the confirmation of the last forecast of the National Bank of Moldova and the disinflation tendency associated with this,” said the governor.

Octavian Armașu also said that the slowdown in the annual inflation confirms and validates the correctness and opportunity of the restrictive character of the previously adopted monetary policy measures. “Today’s decision is based on the expected reversal of the trajectory of annual inflation after the high reached in the fourth quarter of 2022 and the shaping of pronounced disinflation pressures from the aggregate demand against a negative GDP deviation within the forecast period,” noted the governor.