She spoke in Russian. The quotes below were translated into English by Reuters.
ON RATE DECISION
“The absolute majority of the discussion participants were in favour of raising the rate to 18%, but there were also suggestions to keep the current rate level at 16%…there were also were proposals to raise the rate to 19%, to 20%.”
“We assumed that for inflation to return to the target, taking into account a 16% rate, simply more time is needed for the tightness of monetary conditions to show a decline in inflation, taking into account the lag.”
“We decided to raise (the rate) to 18%, but, as I have already said, we do not rule out further increases. Our further steps will depend on incoming data.”
ON DUTIES
“…An increase in duties is always pro-inflationary, almost always a pro-inflationary factor, but we think that the effects of the current decision will be limited because they will not affected a very large group of goods, the market basket, up to 7%, if I am not mistaken. So we think that these effects are limited.”
ON CHINA’S CENTRAL BANK
“We are also watching the situation in China, of course, not only the central bank’s policy, (but) what is happening with the development of the economy, this is our key trading partner.”
“As for their rate decision, they have a different monetary policy regime. Furthermore, their problem is not high inflation, but low inflation. China is now balancing around zero inflation, they are pursuing a policy diametrically opposed to ours, because our task is to reduce inflation, while their task is to avert deflation.”
ON SHARP RATE HIKES:
“There are two sides to this coin, to this rate hike. We can achieve a halt in inflation and even provoke deflation with a prohibitive rate level, but the result will not be the economy’s return to sustainable, balanced growth, but an excessive cooling of demand with excessive volatility in all parameters – in interest rates, in output, in employment, and a strong deviation of inflation downwards from the target.”
“And such excessive volatility will have negative consequences for economic development. So we have no need for these kind of shock increases.”
ON THE PUBLICATION OF OVER-THE-COUNTER TRANSACTION VOLUMES
“Regarding the publication of data, indeed, we started publishing in April, then we stopped publishing because we see the risks of secondary sanctions. We do not link the realised sanctions with the publication, but nevertheless, in order to reduce these risks, we have taken this decision, and no changes are expected here for the time being.”
ON THE ECONOMY OVERHEATING
“As for the overheating, yes, we do believe that the economy is overheating…We do not give a quantitative assessment of the scale of overheating, because it is still such an unobservable value, but the inflationary dynamics are a very important indicator of the overheating of the economy.”
“Therefore, our monetary policy is aimed at narrowing this output gap so that the economy moves to a balanced growth rate.”
*ON OPERATIONS WITHIN THE BUDGET RULE
“We can conduct them both on the stock exchange and in the over-the-counter (OTC) market. The exchange rate will not be affected in any way. If the risks (the termination of exchange trading in yuan) are realised, we will explain the specific mechanism. But I can say that we are ready to conduct it on the OTC market as well.”
*ON CROSS-BORDER PAYMENTS
“As far as cross-border payments are concerned, of course, we are considering different risk scenarios and preparing for different situations.”
“But in general, I think that companies will solve payment problems one way or another, because many countries need to trade with Russia, to carry out export and import operations. So there will be ways to make payments.”
“We take into account the fact that transaction costs of companies in this situation may grow.”
Source: Economy - investing.com
