MOSCOW, October 25. /TASS/. At today's meeting on the key rate, the Board of Directors of the Bank of Russia considered the possibility of raising it above 21%, the option of keeping the rate was not proposed, head of the regulator Elvira Nabiullina said during a press conference.
"I will say right away that we considered three options: raising the rate to 20%, to 21% and higher than 21%. The option of keeping the rate was not considered and was not proposed by anyone. But we discussed in detail the options of raising the rate to 20% and to 21%," she said.
The head of the Bank of Russia added that the regulator allows for the possibility of an additional rate increase in December.
"The possibility of raising the rate in the same steps in the future will depend on the data that comes in. Data on economic development, inflation, inflation expectations, lending growth rates in general, but we allow for the possibility of an additional rate increase in December," she said.
Earlier on Friday, the Bank of Russia's Board of Directors decided to sharply raise the key rate by 200 bp, to 21% per annum, noting that inflation is significantly higher than the Central Bank's July forecast, and the population's inflation expectations have reached their maximum since the beginning of the year.