Analysts lowered the forecast for the average key rate from 20% to 19.3%

Analysts lowered the forecast for the average key rate to 19.3%. This was announced on July 16 by the press service of the Central Bank of Russia.

"Expectations for the average key rate in 2025 and 2026 decreased to 19.3% per annum (-0.7 percentage points; assumes that for the rest of 2025 the average key rate will be 17.4% per annum) and 13.8% per annum (-0.4 percentage points)," the publication says on the website.

According to the regulator, the forecast for 2027 has been increased by 0.2 percentage points to 10.2% per annum, and 8.5% per annum is forecast for the end of the horizon. It is noted that this is higher than the median estimate of the neutral key rate, which is 8.0% per annum.

In addition, analysts lowered the inflation forecast to 6.8% for 2025. At the same time, forecasts for 2026-2027 were increased by 0.1 percentage points to 4.7% and 4.3%, respectively. It is expected that in 2027-2028, inflation will be close to the target.

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Director of Macroeconomic Analysis at Dom Bank.Russian Federation" Zhanna Smirnova, in an interview with Izvestia on July 4, allowed a reduction in the key rate to 15-16% by December 2025. According to her, if inflationary risks increase after the rate cut in July, the Bank of Russia may leave it unchanged at 18%.