More Central Bank Panic: Russia, Serbia Cuts Interest Rates

Russia’s central bank lowered its main interest rate and signaled more policy easing ahead if inflation continues to ease as the economy buckles under low oil prices and sanctions over Ukraine.

 

The one-week auction rate was cut by one percentage point to 14 percent, the central bank said in a statement on its website Friday. Seventeen of 32 economists in a Bloomberg survey predicted the move, with nine seeing no change and five forecasting a bigger reduction. Another analyst predicted a half-point cut.

 

The Bank of Russia is pressing ahead with monetary easing after a surprise 2 percentage-point cut at its January meeting as weekly inflation decelerated.

 

Even with price growth more than fourfold its mid-term target, the regulator is responding to calls from business to unwind December’s emergency increase to 17 percent to buoy an economy entering its first recession in six years.

 

Serbia’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time since November as it fights a recession and the threat of deflation amid the government’s effort to tame the budget deficit.

 

The National Bank of Serbia lowered its one-week repurchase rate by half a point to 7.5 percent, it said in a statement on its website. Six of 23 economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted a quarter-point reduction, eight forecast a half-point cut and nine expected no change.

 

Policy makers reduced the cost of borrowing amid “increased global liquidity as a result of the ECB’s quantitative easing” program, the bank said in a statement on its website. They also took into consideration “fiscal consolidation measures and structural reforms, as well as the conclusion of the International Monetary Fund program.”

 

With one of the highest benchmark rates in emerging Europe, Serbia’s central bank is caught between trying to help the economy emerge from its third recession since 2009 while also shoring up the dinar, which fell after the bank’s November move. Last week, non-executive central bank Chairman Nebojsa Savic said policy makers should hold rates at least until May, when the International Monetary Fund arrives to review Serbia’s compliance with conditions of a stand-by loan.