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YEREVAN, MAY 17, ARMENPRESS. The May 17 session of the Central Bank Board of Armenia decided to lower the refinancing rate by 0.5 percentage point fixing it at 7.75%. As “Armenpress” was informed from the press service of the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia, deflation of 0.3% was recorded in April 2016 against the 0.4% of the previous year, due to which the 12-month inflation formed -1.9% at the end of the month.
Global economy recovers slowly, but at the moment inflationary trends have been relatively stabilized in international commodity markets. The Board of the Central Bank assesses that, despite this, the external inflationary trends will impact domestic prices during the coming months which will be neutralized in the second half of the year.
The Board records that during the period of January-March of 2016 a significant growth of economic activation was registered in Armenia as compared to the same period of 2015 which is conditioned by positive trends in industrial and service sectors that exceeded forecasts.
The Board of the Central Bank records that inflationary forecasts have been lowered thank to consistent monetary policy of the Central Bank. Expected gas price reduction is also an important factor, based on which the Board finds easing monetary policy with greater steps as a reasonable step.
In case of no external or domestic risks, the Board will ease monetary policy further in the future.
Lombard repo rate and deposit rate are determined at 9.25% and 6.25% respectively.