ALMATY (Reuters) – Kazakhstan’s central bank is likely to keep its benchmark interest rate at 16.75% on Friday, with decelerating inflation not yet providing grounds for monetary easing, according to analysts surveyed in a Reuters poll.
Nine of the 10 analysts polled this week said they expected the rate to remain unchanged, with one forecasting a cut of 25 basis points.
Annual inflation slowed to 16.8% in April from 18.1% a month earlier. Inflation is now easing after accelerating to 20.3% in 2022, its highest level since the 1990s.
The bank may start cutting rates in the summer, said Yevgeny Vinokurov of the Eurasian Development Bank, with inflation set to decline significantly as the effects of last autumn’s migration come to an end.
Waves of Russians crossed the border into Kazakhstan after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilisation of troops for Moscow’s war in Ukraine last September.
“We forecast a slowdown in consumer price growth to 7.9% at the end of this year,” Vinokurov said. “The gradual stabilisation of inflationary processes sets the stage for a round of base rate cuts to begin as early as the second half of 2023.”
(Reporting by Mariya Gordeyeva; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
