Central bank maintains interest rates on overnight and medium-term loans

The National Bank of Moldova decided to maintain the interest rates on overnight loans and deposits at 10% and 4% a year respectively. The base rate on the loans granted for a long period of time will remain at 7% a year. A relevant decision was taken by the Bank's Administration Board on July 29, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting a communique from the Bank. The Board also decided to maintain the norm of mandatory reserves composed of financial resources attracted in Moldovan lei and nonconvertible currency and the norm of mandatory reserves consisting of financial resources attracted in freely convertible currency at the level of 8% of the calculation base. The Bank says the rise in the projected inflation rate is due to the increase in the charges of the regulated services, the prices of fuel and food products and in the indirect taxes. At the same time, the basic inflation rate for the last 12 months, which is calculated by the National Bureau of Statistics by excluding the prices that cannot be influenced by the central bank's monetary policy, in March was 5.3%, being within the projected limits.