Finance Minister keeps up the pressure on the NBP to lower interest rates

Finance Minister Grzegorz Kolodko yesterday again attacked the National Bank of Poland (NBP) by calling the current level of interest rates as "suicidal" and said there was room to ease rates by 300 basis points. He forecast that inflation would fall to a new low of 0.5% in January and added that an interest rate of 6.5% was far too high and is putting upward pressure on the zloty. "I also have no doubt that the independent central bank will not do this because, in its opinion, it would hurt the economy," Kolodko told reporters at an economic seminar in Warsaw. Analysts were a little more balanced, noting that real interest rates have fallen with inflation, but are still too high to stimulate the economy. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 22-23; Reuters) M.M.