{"id":424430,"date":"2026-02-13T23:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/424430\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T23:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:53:09","slug":"russian-central-bank-trims-key-rate-sees-a-more-balanced-economy-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/424430\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Central Bank Trims Key Rate, Sees a More Balanced Economy Ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia\u2019s Central Bank lowered its key interest rate to 15.5% from 16% at its first rate-setting meeting of the year on Friday, continuing a streak of cuts that saw five reductions last year.<\/p>\n

Policymakers said<\/a> in a statement announcing the decrease that the economy\u00a0\u201ccontinues to return to a balanced growth path\u201d despite what they described as a \u201cconsiderable\u201d but temporary rise in the cost of goods in January after the government increased the value-added tax and expanded the number of small businesses required to pay the levy on consumption.<\/p>\n

While the Central Bank said it expects to reduce borrowing costs further this year, it wants to see evidence that inflation is moving closer to its target of 4%. According to the bank, inflation stood 6.3% as of Feb. 9,\u00a0down significantly from a year ago.<\/p>\n

Sofia Donets, chief economist at T-Bank, said policymakers on Friday gave their strongest signal for easing monetary policy since 2023 by keeping the door open for further rate cuts this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor now, this guidance is conditional and tied to how inflation progresses,\u201d Donets said<\/a>. \u201cStill, it\u2019s a sign that a turning point may be near.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Central Bank has\u00a0been cautious in lowering the key rate after hiking it to a two-decade high of 21% in September 2024 to curb surging inflation, driven by huge military spending and tightening labor market conditions.<\/p>\n

High borrowing costs have stunted investment and led to sluggish economic growth.<\/p>\n

Russia saw its GDP increase by just 1% in 2025, President Vladimir Putin said at a government meeting last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we also know that this slowdown was not simply expected. One could even say it was man-made,\u201d\u00a0Putin told the gathering of officials.\u00a0\u201cIt was connected with targeted measures to reduce inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Russia has dramatically boosted spending on the military, it has also faced falling revenues. <\/p>\n

In January alone, Russia\u2019s budget deficit\u00a0jumped<\/a>\u00a0to nearly half of its full-year 2026 target of 3.8 trillion rubles ($49.4 billion).<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Finance Ministry said oil and gas revenues for January totaled 393.3 billion rubles ($4.29 billion). That was 32% below the planned target and only half the amount recorded for January 2025.<\/p>\n

Low global oil prices, higher discounts on Russian crude and a stronger ruble have all contributed to the shortfall.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, there is\u00a0uncertainty over the continued export of Russian oil to India, which has come under pressure from the Trump administration to end its energy purchases from Moscow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s Central Bank lowered its key interest rate to 15.5% from 16% at its first rate-setting meeting of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,6267,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-424430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-central-bank","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}