Business news

MINSK, 3 November (BelTA) – The National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB) plans to switch to inflation targeting by 2020, Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus Pavel Kallaur told the media on the sidelines of the KEF 2017 conference Foundations of the Future on 2 November, BelTA has learned.

“I hope that by 2020, when inflation reaches 5%, we will have a sound monetary policy, namely inflation targeting,” said the NBRB head. In his words, it will be a gradual shifting.

Pavel Kallaur stressed that price stability is the major goal of the central bank’s activity. “It has already been defined in the charter of the National Bank this year. We will be gradually moving towards the monetary policy which is called inflation targeting. We have already set forth concrete goals for inflation to be under 5% by 2020,” he said.

Pavel Kallaur explained that next year the National Bank, keeping broad money supply as an intermediate goal of the monetary policy, is changing its operation goal to control interest rates on the monetary market instead of monetary base.

The head of the central bank noted that one of the regulator’s goals is to secure financial stability. “It is also one of the priority goals in the National Bank’s activity. We did a lot for financial stability. Financial stability is based on economic wellbeing of our companies. We and the Belarusian government will have to join efforts in enhancing the efficiency of their activity in the near future,” Pavel Kallaur said.