Interest rates left unchanged

Headline inflation was running at 2.96 per cent in April, easing from a March reading of 3.23 per cent, while bank credit had also expanded, Governor Christodoulos Christodoulou said.
“Inflationary pressures are still lurking and being fuelled by high prices of oil, from the considerable expansion of money supply, and credits to the private sector,” said Christodoulou.
There was also an increase in loans in foreign currency, which had strengthened the Cyprus pound against the euro, Christodoulou said.
The Cyprus Central Bank has not altered its interest rates since a surprise 50 basis point cut in June, 2005.
That move was then taken to arrest a rising Cyprus pound breaking the upper limit of its 2.25 per cent fluctuation band around the euro.
The Cypriot currency is in ERM 2, a stabilisation grid anchoring it against the euro as a precursor to adoption of the single currency. Nicosia hopes to be able to adopt the euro in January, 2008. (R)

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.