The basic forecast scenario reconfirms the annual inflation rate will remain negative until December 2016 and will return to the bank’s target band mid-2017.
The central bank board on Friday kept the key rate unchanged at a record low 1.75% a year and also adopted its quarterly inflation report it will present next week.
At the previous quarterly inflation report, the central bank revised its inflation forecast to -0.4% this year from a previous projection of 0.6%, and to 2% for 2017 from a previously expected 2.7%.
Romania’s annual inflation rate reached -0.6% in September, from -0.2% in August. Save for the temporary effects of a five-point cut in the country’s value-added tax rate, annual inflation would have reached 0.8%, the central bank estimated.