Situation Report on the Monetary Development of Slovakia in March 2008

1. Consumer prices, measured by the harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP), increased by 0.3% in March, as compared with the previous month. The year-on-year growth rate of headline inflation was 3.6%. The core inflation year-on-year growth rate (excl. energy and unprocessed foodstuffs prices) was 3.7%.

2. Consumer prices measured by the CPI increased by 0.3% in March, when compared with the previous month increased by 0.3%. The year-on-year rate of headline inflation was 4.2% and that of core inflation 4.5%.

3. Monetary aggregate M3 (in accordance with the ECB methodology) increased by SKK 10.8 billion on a month-on-month basis in February, while its year-on-year growth rate decreased to 12.2% in comparison with the January figure.

4. 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 of SKK 8.7 billion in February, while their year-on-year growth accelerated by 0.7 of a percentage point to 18.8%.

5. The average lending rate on new loans to non-financial corporations decreased by 0.09 percentage point to 5.79% in February, and that on new loans to households decreased by 0.12 percentage points to 12.50%. The average deposit rate on new deposits of non-financial corporations decreased by 0.26 of a percentage point to 2.12% in the same period, and that on new deposits of households went down by 0.04 of a percentage point to 1.06%.

6. The central government budget surplus was SKK 3.4 billion as at the end of March.

7. Foreign exchange reserves of the NBS (at the current exchange rate) reached the amount of USD 20.0 billion in March. 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 first two 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 February the equivalent of 4.3 times the average monthly imports of goods and services to Slovakia for January and February 2008.

8. In March, Narodna banka Slovenska did not make any foreign exchange intervention.

9. According to the preliminary data, the balance of payments current account for January 2008 resulted in a surplus of SKK 1.1 billion and the capital and financial account of the balance of payments for the same period resulted in a surplus of SKK 4.2 billion. The balance of payments current account for January to February 2005 closed in a surplus of SKK 7.7 billion and the trade balance surplus was SKK 15.5 billion. sk.

10. The total average daily sterilization position of the NBS in March, in comparison with February, increased by SKK 66 million to SKK 371.17 billion.

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

Reproduction is permitted provided that the source is acknowledged.