RPP to consider raising interest rates regardless of Finance Ministry provision.

The 2000 budget draft, prepared by the Finance Ministry, provides for an interest rate hike this year. However, Wojtowicz says that a possible RPP decision would have nothing to do with that provision. "Interest rates are determined by the RPP alone. The Finance Ministry can prepare its own forecasts, but they bear no influence on our resolutions." Wojtowicz and fellow RPP member Boguslaw Grabowski say that the Council may consider raising rates because of deteriorating macroeconomic conditions including a high current account deficit as well as a higher than expected inflation rate for August. "All this data leaves no hope for an interest rate cut this year. Two possibilities