MOSCOW, December 24. /TASS/. Governor of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina admitted that the key rate should have been raised earlier than the regulator did, she said in an interview with RBC.

"In the second half of the year, inflationary pressures began to increase. In fact, the rate of price growth is now quite fast, well above our inflation target. Looking back, we can see that monetary policy was soft and we should have raised the key rate sooner," she said.

She also said that in order to continue to ease policy, the regulator needs to make sure that inflation is declining steadily and that these are not one-time factors that can affect the pace of price growth in any given month. "This will take two or three months or more - it depends on how wide the range of indicators that characterize a stable decline in inflation is," she said.

During the year, the Bank of Russia raised the key interest rate from 7.5% to 16% per annum. Nabiullina said at the end of the year that the cycle of rate hikes was nearing its end.