Rates stay unchanged

 

THE CENTRAL Bank kept its key lending and deposit rates unchanged at 5.50 and 2.50 per cent respectively during a review yesterday, its governor said.
“The board of the Central Bank adopted a recommendation by the monetary policy committee to leave rates unchanged,” governor Afxentis Afxentiou told reporters.

In the past year, the bank has lowered rates on three occasions by a total of 1.50 percentage points.

The policy committee weighed up economic indicators and decided that a further rate cut was unwarranted, Afxentiou said.

“The situation will continue to be assessed on a monthly basis,” he said.

The island’s tourism-reliant economy is poised to record a gross domestic product growth of 3.5-3.9 per cent in real terms this year, while November year-on-year inflation slowed to 1.93 per cent.

But the outlook for 2002 tourism arrivals is unclear pending the January- March booking period.

” It is difficult to give an assessment. There are some good signs as the military operations in Afghanistan appear to be winding down… but it is difficult to say what the outlook is right now,” Afxentiou said.

Tourism represents around 20 per cent of Cyprus’s gross domestic product.

Parliament deregulated the interest rate regime just a year ago following pressure from the European Union. The island is a front-runner for membership and will be included in the next expansion wave.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.