National Bank of Poland sets inflation goal of 6%-7% for next year

According to the National Bank of Poland (NBP)' s recently published Monetary Policy Objectives for 2001," the NBP will aim for an inflation rate between 6-8% by the end of 2001. It anticipates that GDP will increase by 5% and current accounts deficit would be 7% of GDP. The main NBP target is to decrease inflation to 4% by the end of 2003. According to Monetary Policy Council (RPP) member Boguslaw Grabowski, this is still within the NBP' s reach, even if inflation next year ranges from 6% to 8%. But the monetary policy for 2001 must still be very restrictive. According to Dariusz Filar, chief economist for Pekao S.A., the inflation rate announced by the NBP is not very ambitious. " Prior to the NBP announcement, many investment banks had anticipated that next year's inflation rate would be little more than 6%, but after the announcement they decided to increase their anticipated rate by 1%." (Rzeczpospolita, p. B1)