Public finance

New Central Bank Governor Fatih Karahan has said that the bank will maintain its tight monetary stance until inflation falls to levels consistent with its target, while the bank has kept its inflation targets for 2024 and 2025 unchanged.

Türkiye's annual inflation rate increased from 64.77 percent in December last year to 64.86 percent in January, the data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) showed on Feb. 5

The month-on-month consumer price inflation, which has been declining since August last year reserved course last month, but this was widely anticipated.

In a recent announcement, the Bulgarian National Bank has confirmed that the base interest rate for February will stand at 3.79%, maintaining the status quo from January. This decision follows a marginal reduction of 0.01% made in December 2023.

The state budget balance for January-December of 2023 presented a deficit of 3.76 billion euros, against a target for a deficit of €8.34 billion that has been incorporated into the 2024 budget introductory report, and a deficit of €11.65 billion for 2022.

The Central Bank of Türkiye has hiked its key interest rate by another 250 basis points to 45 percent, also signaling an end to its aggressive tightening cycle.

Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek and Central Bank Governor Hafize Gaye Erkan are scheduled to travel to the United States later this week to meet investors.

As part of the "Investor Day" event to be held on Jan. 11, Erkan will make a presentation to foreign investors on monetary policy and inflation.

Inflation is high but is moving in line with the economic program, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said, adding that under the current expectations, the decline in inflation will continue.

The Bank of Greece has already detected the first signs of a slowdown in the housing market, which, as it notes in its Interim Monetary Policy report published on Wednesday, "potentially point to an imminent period of price correction, especially for property uses, features and locations of lower demand."

BELGRADE - The National Bank of Serbia (NBS) Executive Board decided on Thursday to keep the key policy rate on hold at 6.50 pct.

The rates on deposit (5.25 pct) and lending facilities (7.75 pct) also remained unchanged, the NBS said in a statement.

After delivering a 250 bps rate hike last week to increase the one-week repo auction rate to 17.5 percent, the Central Bank has announced a series of measures on selective credits and quantitative tightening.