National Bank of Moldova holds base rate at 5%, lowers reserve requirements

CHISINAU. Feb 5 (Interfax) - The National Bank of Moldova (NBM) took the decision on Thursday to hold the base rate or refinancing rate at 5% per annum, the NBM said in a press release.

The NBM also held the overnight lending rate at 7% per annum, the REPO rate at 5.25% per annum and the overnight deposit rate at 3% per annum.

The bank also lowered the required reserves against liabilities in the national currency from 20% to 18% from February 16, and reserves against liabilities in foreign currencies from 29% to 26%.

The regulator said that the purpose of this step was to cover the banking system's need for liquidity and thus encourage lending to support domestic demand. "At the same time, the effect of the measure to lower the cost of liabilities will spread over time, allowing interest rates on money, deposit and loan markets to be lowered," the NBM said.

The NBM forecasts that inflation, which stood at 6.84% in 2025, will return to the target range of 5% +/- 1.5 percentage points (pp) in the first quarter of this year and will remain near to the target in the medium term. As such, it forecasts average annual inflation at 5% for 2026 and 4.5% for 2027.

The bank said that key internal risks included uncertainty on the timeline and scale of adjustments to tariffs of regulated services, the vulnerability of domestic fruit and vegetable prices to weather conditions, uncertainty regarding agricultural production and a reduction in the number of consumers residing in Moldova.

Among external challenges, NBM listed uncertainty around the settlement of the Ukraine conflict, which continues to cause fragmentation in international trade, a future increase in the surplus on the oil market and growth in the prices of gold and other precious metals.

The NBM will hold its next monetary policy meeting on March 19, 2026.

It was reported at the beginning of last year that the NBM was forced to raise the base rate drastically from 3.6% to 6.5% per annum in order to minimize the impact of increased fuel prices on inflation after it decreased the rate from 4.75% to 3.6% over several stages in 2024. Throughout 2025, the NBM gradually lowered the rate to 5%, the largest increment being 1 pp at the end of the year on December 11.