OREANDA-NEWS. July 18, 2012. The National Bank of Belarus (NBB) expects inflation growth at 20% in late 2012 and pledges to cut down the refinancing rate to 22%.

“The guiding number is 22% for the key rate and 20% for inflation. We hope the forecast will fulfill itself,” NBB chief Nadezhda Yermakova told reporters on June 29.

July will most likely witness another cut in the refinancing rate, but that will not happen on the first of July, as the NBB first needs to analyze the June statistics, Yermakova said.

Belarus saw the consumer price index grow 1.1% over the first 19 days of June 2012 and 9.7% since early this year.

As previously reported, Belarus saw the consumer price index grow 108.7% in 2011, although the initial forecast for 2011 stood at 7.5%-8.5%. Belarus’ inflation forecast for 2012 stands at 19-22%.

The refinancing rate now stands at 32% after the NBB cut the key rate by 2 percentage points down to 32% per annum on June 20, 2012.

That was a fifth cut in the refinancing rate since early this year. All in all, in 2011 Belarus raised the refinancing rate 12 times. Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko signed an ordinance on December 23 to stipulate the major targets for the country’s social and economic development in 2012, indicating that the refinancing rate of the National Bank of Belarus is expected to go down to 20-23% per annum in late 2012.