ArmInfo. At its meeting today, the Board of the Central Bank of Armenia decided to raise the refinancing rate by 0.25 percentage point to 9.5%, the press service of the Central Bank of Armenia told ArmInfo. According to the source, the message of the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia also notes that, in accordance with this, the The Lombard repo facility rate was increased by 0.25 percentage points - from 10.75% to 11%, and the Deposit facility rate - from 7.75% to 8%.
Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Nerses Yeritsyan will present a detailed substantiation of this decision of the Central Bank Council at a press conference at 3:30pm today.
It is worth noting that in 2022 this is already the third increase in the refinancing rate, the previous two took place in February - from 7.75% to 8% and in March - to 9.25%, after which it remained at this level for 4.5 months. And from 2021 to this day, there have been nine increases in the refinancing rate - in total from 5.25% to 9.5%.
According to statistics, in June 2022m the official y-o-y inflation in the consumer market of Armenia reached 10.3%, against respectively y-o-y inflation 6.5% in June 2021. And the core y-o-y inflation calculated by the Central Bank in June 2022 amounted to 9.4%, against respectively y-o-y inflation 7.8% in June 2021. t would be appropriate to recall that the forecast of the Central Bank, updated at the end of June, foreshadowed inflation at the level of 8.5% for 2022 (against the actual 7.7% in 2021), with the target of 4% approaching in 2024. Furthermore, the CBA's forecasts have changed compared to the March version of the report, in particular, in terms of inflation, instead of the previously expected 6.6% in 2022, the updated June version has a higher level of 8.5%, and the projected GDP growth, on the contrary, has improved from the previous 1.6% to the updated 4.9%.
It is appropriate to note that the June 2022 forecast reflects new challenges against the backdrop of the Russian-Ukrainian military-political conflict and comprehensive, unprecedented, large-scale US and European sanctions against Russia, the share of which in the main macroeconomic indicators of Armenia dominates.
It should be noted that the refinancing rate was raised by 1.25% up to 9.25% on March 15, 2022, with the lombard repo facility rate raised from 9.5% up to 10.75% and deposit facility rate raised from 6.5% up to 7.75%. Earlier, on February 1, the refinancing rate was raised by 0.25% up to 8%, with the with the lombard repo facility rate raised from 9.25% up to 9.5% and deposit facility rate raised from 6.25% up to 6.5%. Last year, the refinancing rate was last raised on December 14, 2021, - from 7.25% up to 7.75%. Last year, the CBA raised the refinancing rate six times: in February (by 0.25% up to 5.5%), in May (by 0.5% up to 6%), in June (by 0.5% up to 6.5%), in August (by 0.5% up to 7%), in September (by 0.25% up to 7.25%) and in December (by 0.5% up to 7.75%), with the lombard repo facility rate raised from the initial 6.75% up to 9.25% last December, and deposit facility rate raised from the initial 3.75% up to 6.25%.
In 2020, the CBA revised the refinancing rate down four times and up one time. Specifically, after revising the refinancing rate from 5.5% down to 4.25% (March, April, June, September), the CBA revised it up to 5.25%, with the lombard repo facility rate and deposit facility rate at 6.75% and 3.75% respectively in December.
