Situation Report on the Monetary Development of Slovakia in February 2007

1. Consumer prices, measured by the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), increased when compared with the previous month by 0.1% in February. The year-on-year growth rate of headline inflation was 2.0%. The year-on-year core inflation growth rate (excl. energy and unprocessed foodstuff prices) was 1.8%.

2. Consumer prices measured by the CPI increased when compared with the previous month by 0.2% in February. The year-on-year rate of headline inflation was 2.7% and that of core inflation 2.5%.

3. The real gross domestic product increased by 8.3% in 2006.

4. Monetary aggregate M3 (in accordance with the ECB methodology) increased by SKK 2.6 billion on a month-on-month basis in January, while its year-on-year growth rate increased to 16.5% in comparison with the December figure.

5. The total volume of claims of monetary financial institutions (MFI) vis-ŕ-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 8.2 billion in January, while their year-on-year growth accelerated by 2.8 percentage points to 15.4%.

6. The average lending rate on new loans to non-financial corporations increased by 0.14 of a percentage point to 6.21% in January, and that on new loans to households increased by 0.27 of a percentage point to 12.85%. The average deposit rate on new deposits of non-financial corporations decreased by 0.12 of a percentage point to 2.58% in the same period, and that on new deposits of households went down by 0.02 of a percentage point to 1.16%.

7. The central government budget deficit was SKK 8.5 billion as at the end of February.

8. Foreign exchange reserves of the NBS (at the current exchange rate) reached the amount of USD 14.1 billion in February. Their amount at the end of the month represented the equivalent of 3.3 times the average monthly imports of goods and services to Slovakia for the 12 month period – February 2006 to January 2007. 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 February, the equivalent of 4.6 times the average monthly imports of goods and services to Slovakia for the twelve month period – February 2006 to January 2007

9. In February, Narodna banka Slovenska did not make any foreign exchange intervention.

10. According to the preliminary data, the balance of payments current account for January to December 2006 ended in a deficit of SKK 135.6 billion and the capital and financial account of the balance of payments for the same period ended in a surplus of SKK 32.4 billion. The balance of payments current account for January ended in a surplus of SKK 7.7 billion, and the trade balance surplus was SKK 4.0 billion. .

11. With effect from 19 March 2007, the Slovak koruna central rate against euro has been revalued. The new central rate of the koruna was set at 1 euro = SKK 35,4424. The lower compulsory intervention rate is 30.1260 SKK/EUR and the upper rate is 40.7588 SKK/EUR.

Jana Kovacova
Communications Section

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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