The Central Bank of the Russian Federation announced plans to consider the need to raise the key rate

The Bank of Russia intends to discuss the expediency of raising the key rate at a meeting of the Board of directors to be held on March 21. This was announced on March 13 by Alexey Zabotkin, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, on the sidelines of the Russian Financial Market Forum.

"On February 14, the Board of Directors signaled that it would assess the feasibility of raising [the key rate] at the next meetings. The data that has been received over the past month, since mid-February, does not change the picture significantly, including because not much time has passed," TASS quoted him as saying.

Zabotkin added that how active the discussion will be on all the proposed alternatives will depend on which participants will gather at the discussion table.

Last February warning: the Central Bank has included the risk of key rate hike in the forecast

What signal the regulator gave by leaving the rate unchanged and how the Bank of Russia assesses the effect of a possible end to the Ukrainian conflict

Earlier, on March 7, Elena Akhmedova, chief economist at Euler Analytical Technologies, suggested in a conversation with Izvestia that the Central Bank of the Russian Federation could reduce the key rate to 19% by the end of 2025. At the same time, the expert noted that from the point of view of macro data, there are no reasons for a rapid and rapid mitigation of PREP.

Prior to that, on February 14, the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation decided to keep the key rate at 21% per annum. The regulator noted that the current inflationary pressure remains high, and the growth of domestic demand is outpacing the possibilities of expanding the supply of goods and services. At the same time, the Central Bank drew attention to the fact that the cooling of credit activity has become more pronounced, and the propensity of Russians to save has increased.

The Central Bank added that the achieved rigidity of monetary conditions creates the necessary prerequisites for the resumption of the disinflation process and the return of inflation to the target in 2026.