YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. The Board of the Central Bank of Armenia made a decision to keep the refinancing rate unchanged, setting it 6.0% during the November 14 session, the CBA told Armenpress.

In October 2017 0.8% inflation was recorded compared to the 0.5% of October 2016. The 12-month inflation comprised 1.2% as of late October. The CBA Board assesses that the overall inflation is still low at the expense of fruits and vegetables inflation rate which is less than expected, the impact of which will eliminate in the upcoming months and the inflation will be in the permissible range of fluctuations.

The prospects for improving the global economy growth in the external sector have been maintained. The inflationary trends have been maintained in the international commodity markets. In this case the CBA Board expects certain inflationary effects in line with restoring the external demand.

The Board states that the high economic activity has been maintained according to the results of the 9 months of 2017, mainly at the expense of high growth of services. The domestic demand continues recovering at a faster pace than expected due to the expanded monetary policy and certain recovery in growth of money transfers from abroad. The evidence of the recovery of domestic demand is the high growth in imports and the normal inflation behavior.

Despite that the CBA Board assesses certain expansion of inflationary environment and expectations, it still considers it appropriate to maintain the current monetary policy stimulus conditions.

In case of economic development prospects and deviation risks from inflation recovery trajectory, the CBA will clarify the monetary policy directions ensuring the implementation of the inflation goal in the medium-term.