The Russian Central Bank's Board of Directors may consider the same options regarding decisions on the key rate it did in June at its meeting in July, director of the Central Bank's monetary policy department Kirill Tremasov said.
"We are now considering the possibility of raising the key rate. This issue was discussed at the June meeting. I think it will be discussed at the July meeting. Moreover, the signal that we gave sounds like we admit the possibility of a rate hike in July," Tremasov said.
According to him, the CBR Board of Directors considered the possibility of raising the rate in June to 17%, as well as to 18%, but decided in the end to keep the rate at 16%.
"We will have complete statistics on inflation for both May and June by the July meeting, so we will have more data with which to make an informed decision," Tremasov said.
The next Central Bank Board of Directors meeting on the rate will be held on July 26.
