Expert calls Central Bank's decision to keep the rate on hold a good signal for business

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR) keeping the key rate at 21% per annum is a good signal for business, Aleksey Belsky, founder and CEO of engineering and IT company Uralenergotel, told Izvestia on December 20.

"The Central Bank has kept the key rate at 21% per annum, and this is a good signal for business, which has been under a lot of pressure during the year due to previous increases. If earlier banks lent "key+2.5%", now the Central Bank has changed the requirements, and the real value of loans became from "key +7%", - explained the representative of the business.

According to him, under the pressure of a high credit rate, large companies-customers in the engineering market previously cut low-efficiency or optional costs. Its further growth could lead to the freezing of many projects. At the same time, the expert noted that there are not many businesses with profit margins of 50% or more in the Russian Federation.

"In general, the market is changing. Every really large enterprise interacts with thousands of counterparties, and not all of this thousand are ready to live in new conditions. In 2025, I expect another wave of degradation of contracting organizations - not everyone can reliably predict the margins of projects, many go into tenders "on a whim", which leads to losses, bankruptcies and loss of competent specialists. There are some reserves, and there will be inertia, but further a wave of bankruptcies or consolidation of businesses in favor of companies with liquidity is possible", - predicted the representative of business.

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Earlier in the day, the Board of Directors of the Central Bank decided to keep the key rate at 21% per annum. The regulator clarified that there was a more significant tightening of monetary conditions than expected in October. At the same time, according to the Central Bank's forecast, taking into account the monetary policy, annual inflation will fall to 4% in 2026.

Before that, on December 18, the head of the State Duma Committee on Financial Market Anatoly Aksakov suggested that the regulator may begin to reduce the rate in the first quarter of 2025. According to him, this will begin to happen after inflation slows down.