Poland's central bank on Wednesday raised its key interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.75 percent in an inflation-fighting move, after having held it unchanged for 18 months in a row. The bank announced its decision to raise the minimum bank intervention rate in a statement released following its monthly monetary policy meeting.
The decision was expected by analysts. "The bank has made the right decision," said Stanislaw Gomulka, a Polish economist from the London School of Economics. "We've seen a clear rise in inflation over recent months, accompanied by climbing industrial output. Inflation threatens to grow further over coming months, while economic growth is satisfactory," Gomulka told the Polish news agency PAP.
In December, consumer prices rose in Poland by 0.4 percent from November, and by 3.1 percent compared with the same month in 2009. In November, the rise had been 0.1 percent from October, and 2.7 percent from 2009. Poland was the only member of the European Union to sustain growth in 2009 - of 1.7 percent compared with the previous year - as the global crisis torpedoed economies across the 27-nation bloc. Growth in 2010 is forecast to have hit around 4.0 percent, and is expected to remain around that level this year.
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