Situation Report on the Monetary Development of Slovakia in February 2008
1. Consumer prices, measured by the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), increased, when compared with the previous month, by 0.3% in February. The year-on-year growth rate of headline inflation was 3.4%. The core inflation year-on-year growth rate (excl. energy and unprocessed foodstuffs prices) was 3.5%.
2. Consumer prices, measured by the CPI, increased, when compared with the previous month, by 0.4% in February. The year-on-year rate of headline inflation was 4.0% and that of core inflation 4.3%.
3. The real gross domestic product increased by 10.4% in 2007.
4. Monetary aggregate M3 (in accordance with the ECB methodology) decreased by SKK 0.1 billion on a month-on-month basis in January, while its year-on-year growth rate decreased to 12.6% in comparison with the December 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 a month-on-month decrease by SKK 3.6 billion in January, while their year-on-year growth accelerated by 0.6 of a percentage point to 18.1%.
6. The average lending rate on new loans to non-financial corporations increased by 0.26 of a percentage point to 5.88% in January, and that on new loans to households went up by 0.21 of a percentage point to 12.33%. The average lending rate on new deposits of non-financial corporations increased by 0.55 of a percentage point to 2.38% in the same period, and that on new deposits of households went up by 0.11 of a percentage point to 1.10%.
7. The central government budget surplus was SKK 1.5 billion as at the end of February.
8. Foreign exchange reserves of the NBS (at the current exchange rate) reached the amount of USD 19.6 billion in February. Their amount at the end of the month represented the equivalent of 3.6 times the average monthly imports of goods and services to Slovakia for the 12 month period – February 2007 to January 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 January, the equivalent of 4.6 times the average monthly imports of goods and services to Slovakia for the twelve month period – February 2007 to January 2008.
9. In February, Narodna banka Slovenska made no foreign exchange intervention.
10. According to the preliminary data, the balance of payments current account for January to December 2007 ended in a deficit of SKK 98.8 billion and the capital and financial account of the balance of payments for the same period ended in a surplus of SKK 183.9 billion. The balance of payments current account for January 2008 ended in a deficit of SKK 0.3 billion, and the trade balance surplus was SKK 6.6 billion. sk.
11. The total average daily sterilization position of the NBS in February, in comparison with January, decreased by SKK 400 billion to SKK 371.2 billion.
Jana Kováčová
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
http://www.nbs.sk
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