Situation Report on the Monetary Development of Slovakia in August 2008
1. Consumer prices, measured by the harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP), decreased by 0.1% in August, as compared with the previous month. The year-on-year growth rate of headline inflation was 4.4%. The core inflation (excl. energy and unprocessed foodstuff prices) reached a year-on-year growth rate 4.2%.
2. Consumer prices measured by the CPI increased by 0.2% in August, when compared with the previous month. The year-on-year rate of headline inflation was 5.0% and that of core inflation 5.3%.
3. The real gross domestic product increased by 7.6% in the second quarter of 2008.
4. Monetary aggregate M3 (in accordance with the ECB methodology) increased by SKK 10.3 billion on a month-on-month basis in July, while its year-on-year growth rate increased to 9.6% in comparison with the June figure.
5. The total volume of claims of monetary financial institutions (MFI) vis-a-vis residents (incl. securities issued by customers and held by the MFI sector, according to the ECB methodology) recorded in July a month-on-month increase by SKK 18.1 billion, in March, while their year-on-year growth slowed by 0.2 percentage points to 14.0%.
6. The average lending rate on new loans to non-financial corporations remained unchanged in July, and that on new loans to households increased by 0.03 of a percentage point to 11.93%. The average lending rate on new deposits of non-financial corporations increased by 0.01 of a percentage point to 2.60% in the same period, and that on new deposits of households went up by 0.04 of a percentage point to 1.18%.
7. The central government budget surplus was SKK 5.1 billion as at the end of August.
8. Foreign exchange reserves of the NBS (at the current exchange rate) reached the amount of USD 18.8 billion in August. Their amount at the end of the month represented the equivalent of 2.7 times the average monthly imports of goods and services to Slovakia for the first five months in 2008. The coverage of the average monthly imports of goods and services (payments for imports of goods and services acquired from banking statistics data) by the official foreign exchange reserves represented as at the end of July the equivalent of 3.8 times the average monthly imports of goods and services to Slovakia for the first seven months in 2008.
9. In August, Narodna banka Slovenska did not make any foreign exchange intervention.
10. According to the preliminary data, the balance of payments current account for May 2008 ended in a deficit of SKK 27.5 billion and the capital and financial account of the balance of payments for the same period ended in a surplus of SKK 46.6 billion. The balance of payments current account for January to July ended in a deficit of SKK 75.1 billion and the trade balance deficit was SKK 8.3 billion. sk.
11. The total sterilization position of the NBS in July, in comparison with July, increased nearly by SKK 4.0 billion to SKK 381.0 billion. sk.
Jana Kovacova
Spokesperson of the NBS
National Bank of Slovakia
Communications Section
Imricha Karvasa 1, 813 25 Bratislava, Slovak Republic
Tel.: +421-2-5787 2161,+421-2-5865 2161, +421-2-5787 2166, 421-2-5865 2166
Internet: http://www.nbs.sk
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