Polish central banker sees CPI near target in 1 year

WARSAW: Inflation in Poland should ease back to around the 2.5-percent target in about a year, the Monetary Policy Council (MPC) member Jerzy Hausner was quoted on Monday as saying.

"Inflation should stop accelerating and return to a level near to the set target, that is 2.5 percent, in about a year," Hausner told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily in an interview.

Inflation accelerated to 5.0 percent year-on-year in May , visibly beating market consensus and way above the central bank's target, and Hausner also said prices were spilling over in Poland.

"Let's not announce the end of hikes, because we may find out that we still have to do what we have to do," he also said, adding the 100 basis points in rate increases delivered so far this year did not hurt the Polish economy.

"It's hard to say that the monetary policy is restrictive when inflation stands at as much as the main central bank's rate. So I don't think that our latest decisions could weaken GDP growth in any significant way," he said.

"Economic growth will weaken, though not because of too high interest rates," Hausner added saying growth would near 3 percent on slowly falling unemployment, less public investment and other public spending as well as weak private investments.

Analysts expect the Polish economy, the biggest ex-communist one in the European Union, to expand by 4.2 percent this year.

Copyright Reuters, 2011