“As long as the demand continues to fall, the policy mix, including the monetary policy, is sufficiently strong,” Isarescu said at the presentation of the bank’s quarterly inflation report.
“We must be very careful as to when we should tighten our monetary policy, considering the lack of domestic demand,” he added.
Isarescu said the central bank would rather keep a closer watch on the liquidity levels in the market than increasing the monetary policy rate.
“The first obvious move is to bring interest rates in the market closer to the key rate level before thinking about raising them by increasing the central bank’s monetary policy rate,” Isarescu said.
Friday, the bank left its key rate unchanged at a historic low of 5.25% for the fifth consecutive meeting, in line with expectations.
The central bank estimates the annual inflation will reach 5.1% in December, above the upper limit of its 2012 target range of 2%-4%.
In September, the annual inflation rate rose to 5.3%, from 3.88% a month earlier.