{"id":36790,"date":"2013-03-12T07:50:30","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T11:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/forex-news\/?p=36790"},"modified":"2013-03-12T07:50:30","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T11:50:30","slug":"serbia-holds-rate-pauses-after-8-hikes-sees-lower-inflation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2013\/03\/12\/serbia-holds-rate-pauses-after-8-hikes-sees-lower-inflation\/","title":{"rendered":"Serbia holds rate, pauses after 8 hikes, sees lower inflation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\"><u>www.CentralBankNews.info<\/u><\/a> &nbsp; &nbsp; Serbia&#8217;s central bank held its benchmark interest rate steady at 11.75 percent, pausing after eight rate hikes since last June, saying its current policy stance should return inflation to the bank&#8217;s target.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;The National Bank of Serbia, which has raised rates in the last eight of nine committee meetings since June 2012, said a low monthly inflation rate in the last four months confirms the impact of recent policy measures even if the annual inflation rate remains above target.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Serbia&#8217;s&nbsp;inflation rate rose rose to 12.8 percent in January from December&#8217;s 12.2 percent, sharply above the central bank&#8217;s target of 4.0 percent, plus\/minus 1.5 percentage points.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Economists had expected the central bank to hold rates unchanged following last month when it said that inflation should start to decline due to its recent rate rises &#8211; 2.25 percentage points since June &#8211; a new agricultural season and the disappearance of the base effect of higher administered prices.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; The National Bank said the expected decline in inflation should help the government implement its fiscal consolidation program, reach a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund, and stabilize agricultural administered prices.<br \/><a name='more'><\/a><br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &#8220;So far, the monetary policy measures have taken into account the strength and character of inflationary pressures and demonstrate the bank&#8217;s firm commitment to returning inflation to the target range,&#8221; the central bank said.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Serbia&#8217;s&nbsp;Gross Domestic Product contracted by 0.8 percent in the third quarter from the second quarter for an annual contraction of 1.5 percent, below the second&#8217;s quarter&#8217;s rate of minus 2.5 percent but above the first quarter&#8217;s 0.8 percent.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Serbia&#8217;s inflation rate started accelerating in April last year when it hit a 30-year low of 2.7 percent and peaked at 12.9 percent in October due to higher agricultural prices and administered prices.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Last month the central bank said in its quarterly inflation report that it would consider relaxing its policy stance as inflationary pressures from higher food and administered prices disappear.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; The central bank estimated that the country&#8217;s economy contracted by 1.7 in 2012 and forecast an expansion of 2.5 percent in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\">www.CentralBankNews.info<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"primary_content\" style=\"border: 0px;float: left;font-size: 13px;margin: 0px;overflow: visible;padding: 0px;vertical-align: baseline;width: 630px\">\n<div class=\"component\" id=\"story\">\n<div class=\"clearfix\" id=\"story_content\" style=\"border: 0px;font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;font-size: 14px;line-height: 1.6em;margin: 0px 0px 10px;padding: 0px 10px 0px 0px;vertical-align: baseline\">\n<div id=\"story_display\" style=\"border: 0px;margin: 0px;padding: 0px;vertical-align: baseline\">\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By www.CentralBankNews.info &nbsp; &nbsp; Serbia&#8217;s central bank held its benchmark interest rate steady at 11.75 percent, pausing after eight rate hikes since last June, saying its current policy stance should return inflation to the bank&#8217;s target.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;The National Bank of Serbia, which has raised rates in the last eight of nine committee meetings since June &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2013\/03\/12\/serbia-holds-rate-pauses-after-8-hikes-sees-lower-inflation\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Serbia holds rate, pauses after 8 hikes, sees lower inflation&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}