YEREVAN, November 9. /ARKA/. The Central Bank of Armenia has left the current 7.25% refinancing rate unchanged.

The central bank’s press office says that inflation in Armenia was recorded at 1% in October, compared with September.

As a result, year-on-year inflation reached 9.1% in October (0.5% higher than September’s).

Explaining the high inflation rate, the regulator said that the year-on-year inflation was driven 4.4 percentage points up by increase in prices for bread, fruits and vegetables.

The central bank’s board, taking into account developments at world food and raw materials markets, thinks that inflation risks run high in Armenia.

On the other hand, a slow recovery of gross supply due to developments inside the domestic economy creates no inflation pressures so far.

The board thinks impacts of outside developments will continue dominating inflation environment.

Nevertheless, the present refinancing rate is sufficient for neutralizing secondary impacts and projections for inflation fueled by shocks of supply within the foreseeable period of time.

The central bank’s board thinks that under the buffered supply shocks, the 12-month inflation will remain within the projected range.

Nevertheless, necessity to revise the rate is not ruled out, depending on the degree of impacts.
The central bank has raised the refinancing rate five times since the beginning of this year – on January 21, February 16, March 9 and April 13 by 0.5 p.p. each time and on May 11 by 0.25%. M.V.-0---