When prices for marker products surge, even if their share in the consumer basket is rather small, this might speed up inflation expectations. This is what we observed in sugar and sunflower oil prices last year. Today, inflation expectations are already high, and this impact might be even stronger. Inflationary pressure is still spurred by higher prices in global markets. Recently, prices for food products, coal, non-ferrous metals, and especially natural gas continued to trend upwards. Increased gas prices are pushing up prices for nitrogen fertilisers, which might ultimately become an additional driver of pressure on prices in food markets put by agricultural enterprises’ costs. However, there are also goods demonstrating a stabilisation of prices and even their adjustment downwards. These are steel, iron ore, precious metals, and lumber. Nonetheless, we cannot be confident yet about how steady these trends are. Global markets remain a source of elevated inflation risks. However, the question is not only and not so much about transitory factors. It is more important that the indicators of steady inflation are above the target. This is about demand-side pressure, or to be more precise, about a considerable gap between the current level of demand and the potential of supply to meet such demand. It is not always possible to build up production capacities quickly.
Lending growth rates remained high in all segments, which is the main indicator evidencing that monetary conditions remained accommodative, rather than neutral in the third quarter as well. 2/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  Over the period from the September meeting to yesterday, yields on federal government bonds rose by 50–60 basis points. The increase in short-term yields suggests a revision of market expectations regarding the key rate, whereas growth in long-term yields is driven by the trends in global markets. Deposit rates continued to go up in September—October, although more slowly than in the previous months. Deposit terms are not yet sufficiently attractive to boost households’ demand for this form of savings. As regards lending, the corporate segment continues to expand steadily. Growth in consumer lending has slowed down somewhat. As regards the mortgage segment, after a slight deceleration in July—August due to the revision of the subsidised mortgage lending programmes, growth sped up again in autumn. In this context, we have revised our forecast range of retail lending growth for this year upwards by 3 percentage points to 21– 25%. The forecast for lending in the economy in general remained unchanged. Currently, the actual changes in the credit market are obviously not sufficient to form such monetary conditions that would help bring inflation back to 4% and stabilise it at this level. Our today’s decision will accelerate the adjustment in the credit and deposit market. As regards risks to the forecast, proinflationary ones currently prevail.