{"id":66522,"date":"2015-01-14T12:15:57","date_gmt":"2015-01-14T17:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/?p=66522"},"modified":"2015-01-14T14:20:59","modified_gmt":"2015-01-14T19:20:59","slug":"poland-maintains-rate-but-moves-closer-to-further-easing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/2015\/01\/poland-maintains-rate-but-moves-closer-to-further-easing\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland maintains rate but moves closer to further easing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"inves-4113125113\" class=\"inves-below-title-posts inves-entity-placement\"><div id =\"posts_date_custom\"><div align=\"left\">January 14, 2015<\/div><hr style=\"border: none; border-bottom: 3px solid black;\">\r\n<\/div><\/div><p>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\"><u>CentralBankNews.info<\/u><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp; &nbsp; Poland&#8217;s central bank maintained its monetary policy reference rate at 2.0 percent but moved closer to cutting the rate if the country remains in the grip of deflation and economic activity in the country and surrounding countries slows further.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; The National Bank of Poland (NBP) dropped its guidance from December that its 50 basis points rate cut in October and economic growth would limit this risk of inflation remaining below its 2.5 percent target but repeated that it would &#8220;not rule out further adjustment of monetary policy.&#8221;<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; The central bank pointed to the uncertainty surrounding the country&#8217;s economy with economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2014 possibly slowing slightly as industrial output had almost stagnated in November while construction and assembly output continued to fall and growth in retail sales decreased. However, bank lending to firms and households continued to be steady.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Poland&#8217;s Gross Domestic Product expanded by 0.9 percent in the third quarter from the second for annual growth of 3.3 percent, down from 3.5 percent in the second.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; The unemployment rate rose slightly to 11.5 percent in December, the second month in a row of a rising jobless rate, but the NBP said data pointed to a further rise in corporate employment.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Polish consumer prices fell by 0.6 percent in November, the fifth consecutive month of deflation and below expectations. Most indices for core inflation also fell, the NBP said, confirming the lack of demand while a continued decline in producer prices illustrated the lack of cost pressures.<br \/><a name='more'><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11pt\">&nbsp; &nbsp; The National Bank of Poland issued the following statement:<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"page\" title=\"Page 2\">\n<div class=\"layoutArea\">\n<div class=\"column\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\"><br \/><\/span>          <\/p>\n<div class=\"page\" title=\"Page 2\">\n<div class=\"layoutArea\">\n<div class=\"column\">\n<div class=\"page\" title=\"Page 1\">\n<div class=\"layoutArea\">\n<div class=\"column\">     <span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype,Bold';font-size: 11.000000pt\">&#8220;The Council has decided to keep the NBP interest rates unchanged at: <\/span><br \/>      <span style=\"font-family: 'Wingdings';font-size: 11.000000pt\">\uf0a7 <\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">reference rate at 2.00% on an annual basis; <\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Wingdings';font-size: 11.000000pt\">\uf0a7 <\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">lombard rate at 3.00% on an annual basis;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Wingdings';font-size: 11.000000pt\">\uf0a7 <\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">deposit rate at 1.00% on an annual basis;<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Wingdings';font-size: 11.000000pt\">\uf0a7 <\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">rediscount rate at 2.25% on an annual basis. <\/span><br \/>      <span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">Global economic activity growth remains moderate, although the situation varies across countries. The United States observed continued recovery in 2014 Q4, and the data on GDP in 2014 Q3 have been revised upwards. In contrast, activity growth in the euro area has continued to be slow, and the 2015 growth forecasts have been revised downwards in the recent months. In the largest emerging economies, economic activity growth has also remained weak as for these countries. <\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">Russia\u2019s output growth has <\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">probably decreased close to zero. <\/span><br \/>      <span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">In the past month, oil prices continued to decline sharply. Along with the moderate global economic growth, this has been conducive to inflation persisting at very low levels in many countries, and contributed to deflation occurring in the euro area. <\/span><br \/>      <span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">Major central banks continue their expansionary monetary policy and keep interest rates at historically low levels. The ECB and the Bank of Japan are running asset purchase programmes. At the same time, expectations of a gradual interest rate increase in the United States have strengthened which have contributed to a depreciation of the emerging market currencies, including the zloty. Heightened risk aversion in the international financial markets persists. <\/span><br \/>      <span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">In Poland, economic activity growth in 2014 Q4 may have slowed down slightly. In November, industrial output growth decreased to near-zero levels, while construction and assembly output continued to fall. At the same time, retail sales growth decreased. Growth in bank lending <\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">\u2013 <\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">both to enterprises and households <\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">\u2013 <\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">continued at a steady pace. <\/span><br \/>      <span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">Labour market data point to a further rise in corporate employment, which supports the decline in seasonally-adjusted unemployment. At the same time, wage pressure remains limited, as indicated by continued moderate wage growth in the corporate sector. <\/span>           <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11pt\">In November, CPI inflation remained negative and was below expectations at -0.6% y\/y. This was accompanied by a decrease in the majority of core inflation indices, which confirms the absence of demand pressure in the economy. The decline in producer prices<\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">has also continued, indicating a lack of cost pressure in the economy. This is accompanied by very low inflation expectations of enterprises and households. <\/span>           <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11pt\">The Council decided to keep the NBP interest rates unchanged. The Council highlights that uncertainty regarding economic conditions in the environment of the Polish economy persists. If the expected period of deflation extends, which would increase the risk of inflation remaining below the target in the medium term, and incoming data confirm a slowdown in economic activity as well as weak growth in the environment of the Polish economy persists, the Council does not rule out further adjustment of monetary policy.<\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">&nbsp;&#8220;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\">&nbsp; &nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\">www.CentralBankNews.info<\/a><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';font-size: 11.000000pt\"><br \/><\/span>     <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"background-color: white;border: 0px;font-family: Arial;font-size: 16px;line-height: 24px;margin: 0px;padding: 0px\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By CentralBankNews.info &nbsp; &nbsp; Poland&#8217;s central bank maintained its monetary policy reference rate at 2.0 percent but moved closer to cutting the rate if the country remains in the grip of deflation and economic activity in the country and surrounding countries slows further.&nbsp; &nbsp; The National Bank of Poland (NBP) dropped its guidance from December [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","no-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}