Interest rates cuts, yes, but in small doses, says RPP member Czekaj

Monetary Policy Council (RPP) member Jan Czekaj announced in an interview y esterday, that the current strategy of cutting rate cuts by 25 percentage p oints at a time is a prudent policy as it does not cause any shocks to fina ncial markets. Czekaj also emphasized that in countries with a similar level of inflation as Poland has, namely the Czech Republic, interest rates are at a much lower level. "It therefore cannot be excluded that the interest rate here could be lowered by 2%-3% from the current 5.25% without any negative consequences. Of course a one time cut of such an amount would lead to an e normous shock to the financial system. This is why I support cautious and r egular modest cuts, which could be halted if inflation begins to rise again ," said Czekaj, adding that soon a rate cut of up to a maximum of 50 percen tage points could be expected. (www.onet.pl) A.K.