YEREVAN, December 26. /ARKA/. Russian Economic Development Minister Alexey Ulyukaev proposes the central bank to down its key interest rate throughout the first quarter of them next year, according to Banki.ru.

“The rate is extremely high now and it should be lowered throughout the 1st Q 2015,” he told journalists on Thursday.

The minister also presumed that banks still have resources to maintain former or close to them interest rates on loans in the first quarter.

Besides, he said, no transition to inflation targeting has happened until now and will not happen in 2015.
“We have no inflation targeting and won’t have it in 2015,” Ulyukaev said. “What we do now is return to foreign exchange rate targeting and increase of the rate is a pure targeting of the exchange rate.”

On December 16, Russia’s central bank, reacting to a sharp dive of the ruble, raised its key interest rate from 10.5% to 17%. --0--