{"id":45227,"date":"2013-12-10T13:25:50","date_gmt":"2013-12-10T18:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/forex-news\/?p=45227"},"modified":"2013-12-10T13:25:50","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T18:25:50","slug":"botswana-cuts-rate-50-bps-inflation-likely-to-fall-further","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2013\/12\/10\/botswana-cuts-rate-50-bps-inflation-likely-to-fall-further\/","title":{"rendered":"Botswana cuts rate 50 bps, inflation likely to fall further"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\"><u>CentralBankNews.info<\/u><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp; &nbsp; Botswana&#8217;s central bank cut its bank rate by 50 basis points to 7.50 percent, saying inflation is set to remain within the bank&#8217;s target range and &#8220;the current state of the economy, in which unemployment remains high alongside below-trend economic activity, suggests scope for monetary policy easing to stimulate stronger output growth.&#8221;<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; The Bank of Botswana has now cut rates four times this year for a total reduction of 200 basis points in sync with a decline in inflation since a 2013-high of 7.6 percent in March.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; In October inflation dropped to 4.8 percent from September&#8217;s 5.0 percent and within the bank&#8217;s target of 3-6 percent.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &#8220;Weak domestic demand and the forecast benign external price developments contribute to the positive inflation outlook in the medium term, with the likelihood of a further fall in inflation in the short term,&#8221; the central bank said.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; The bank cautioned, however, that this outlook could be negatively affected by large increases in administered prices and government levies, along with higher-than-forecast international food prices.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Botswana&#8217;s Gross Domestic Product expanded by an annual 7.9 percent in the second quarter, up from 3.3 percent in the first quarter but the bank said non-mining GDP is expected to remain below potential in the medium term and generate minimal inflationary pressures.<br \/><a name='more'><\/a>&nbsp; &nbsp; The central bank said it expects commercial banks to adjust their own interest rates to reflect its rate cut and in order &#8220;to protect the interest of depositors, banks are required to offer and publish a 91-day deposit or equivalent deposit product which pays and interest rate that is at least 350 basis points (3.5 percentage points) below the prevailing bank rate.&#8221;<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; At the current bank rate of 7.5 percent, this 91-day deposit rate should be a minimum of 4 percent, with higher interest rates for longer deposits, the bank said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\">www.CentralBankNews.info<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"column\">  <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By CentralBankNews.info &nbsp; &nbsp; Botswana&#8217;s central bank cut its bank rate by 50 basis points to 7.50 percent, saying inflation is set to remain within the bank&#8217;s target range and &#8220;the current state of the economy, in which unemployment remains high alongside below-trend economic activity, suggests scope for monetary policy easing to stimulate stronger output &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2013\/12\/10\/botswana-cuts-rate-50-bps-inflation-likely-to-fall-further\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Botswana cuts rate 50 bps, inflation likely to fall further&#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-45227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45227","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=45227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}