MOSCOW, June 6. /TASS/. The Board of Directors of the Bank of Russia has discussed keeping and lowering the key rate today, Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina said at the press conference after the Board meeting.

"We have considered two variants today. There were suggestions to keep the rate, suggestions to reduce the rate. It should be noted at the same time that many of those proposing to keep the rate now assumed its lowering at the next meeting in July," she said.

Variants of reducing the key rate by 0.5 percentage points and by one percentage point were discussed, Nabiullina said. "The Board of Directors eventually decided that enough facts were accumulated to reduce the rate to 20%. A more significant step was not considered," she added.