VLADIVOSTOK, September 5. /TASS/. Chief Executive Officer of Russia’s second-largest lender VTB Andrey Kostin expects the Central Bank to take a decision to keep the key rate at 18% at the upcoming meeting of its board of directors in September. Meanwhile, the bank’s analysts suggest that the rate may rise to 20%.

"I seem to think that it will be kept, though my analysts believe that [the rate] will rise to 20%, which means we have two opinions," Kostin told reporters on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF).

The next meeting of the board of directors of the Bank of Russia on the key rate is scheduled for September 13. Central Bank Deputy Governor Alexey Zabotkin told reporters in late August that the regulator would estimate the reasonability of raising the key rate at coming meetings.

The Eastern Economic Forum is underway on the campus of the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok. The main theme of the EEF this year is ‘Far East 2030. Combining strengths to create new potential’. Business activities are broken down into seven thematic blocks: ‘New contours of international cooperation’, ‘Technologies to ensure independence’, ‘Financial value system’, ‘the Russian Far East’, ‘People, education and patriotism’, ‘Transport and logistics: new routes’, and ‘Master plans: from architecture to economy’. The Roscongress Foundation is the Forum’s organizer. TASS is the general information partner of the EEF.