National Bank tightens loans policy

The Board of the National Bank of Romania (BNR) reunited on Tuesday and decided to raise the monetary policy rate to 8.75 percent/year from 8.5 percent in order to reduce inflation by tightening the banking loan monetary policy.

With the purpose of slowing the persistent and fast-paced non-government credit expansion, especially leu-denominated loans, the NBR Board has decided to increase to 20 percent from 16 percent the minimum reserve requirements on leu-denominated liabilities with maturities of up to two years starting with the July 24 – August 23, 2006 maintenance period.

The BNR Board pledges that it will continue to monitor the monetary and macroeconomic trends, both domestically and internationally, and will react in order to to achieve medium-term disinflation objectives.