Situation Report on the Monetary Development of Slovakia in January 2008
1. Consumer prices, measured by the harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP), increased by 1.3% in January, as compared with the previous month. The year-on-year growth rate of headline inflation was 3.8% and that of core inflation was 4.1%. The data measured by the Statistical Office of the SR will be released on 29 February 2008.
2. Monetary aggregate M3 (in accordance with the ECB methodology) increased by SKK 41.4 billion on a month-on-month basis in December, while its year-on-year growth rate increased by 13.0% in comparison with the November figure.
3. 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 increase by SKK 15.3 billion, while their year-on-year growth accelerated by 0.3 percentage points to 17.5%.
4. The average lending rate on new loans to non-financial corporations decreased by 0.09 of a percentage point to 5.62% in December, and that on new loans to households decreased by 0.03 of a percentage point to 12.12%. The average deposit rate on new deposits of non-financial corporations decreased by 0.36 of a percentage point to 1.83% in the same period, and that on new deposits of households decreased by 0.02 of a percentage point to 0.99%.
5. The central government budget as at the end of January ended in a surplus of SKK 13.0 billion.
6. Foreign exchange reserves of the NBS (at the current exchange rate) reached the amount of USD 19.0 billion in January. Their amount at the end of the month represented the equivalent of 3.5 times the average monthly imports of goods and services to Slovakia for the first twelve months in 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 December the equivalent of 4.6 times the average monthly imports of goods and services to Slovakia for the first twelve months in 2007.
7. In January Narodna banka Slovenska did not make any foreign exchange intervention.
8. According to the preliminary data, the balance of payments current account for January to November 2007 ended in a deficit of SKK 88.5 billion and the capital and financial account of the balance of payments for the same period ended in a surplus of SKK 170.3 billion. The balance of payments current account for January to December 2005 ended in a deficit of SKK 97.9 billion. and the trade balance deficit was SKK 19.7 billion.
9. The total average daily sterilization position of the NBS in January, in comparison with December, increased by SKK 3.4 million to SKK 371.6 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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