It is essential that the market promptly receives the information which the Board of Directors consults when making its decision. The Bank of Russia will continue to publish its analytical commentary that summarises and estimates expectations of households, businesses and analysts, after ‘the week of silence’. Third. Monetary conditions are continuing to loosen. We expect that both previous and today’s key rate decisions will underpin this trend. Market expectations for interest rates shifted downwards on the back of the signals in the followup to the Board meetings in June and July. This was also driven by the shifting expectations for monetary policies of the US Fed and the ECB as the economic growth outlook for the US and euro area deteriorated. The decline in interest rates comes with an easing of non-price lending conditions in terms of maturities and volumes. The easing of both price and non-price monetary conditions contributes to expansion in lending. According to our estimates, corporate lending will rise by 7-10% while retail lending will increase by 15–20% this year. Fourth. Economic activity undershot the Bank of Russia’s expectations in the second and early third quarter. This results from internal and external factors. This made us revise our 2019 GDP growth forecast from 1.0-1.5% to 0.8-1.3%. An important external factor is a slowdown in growth of the global economy, which has proven more tangible than expected due to, among other things, the growing contradictions in international trade.
The euro area’s recovery is on track and gaining momentum, but still weak, as inflation expectations are not rising and core  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  inflation has levelled out. In December the Eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections will inform our decision. Given that the ECB has already sent strong signals to the financial markets, aren’t you obliged to act now? No. The decisions we take are based on the economy, not financial markets. We are currently asking ourselves the following question: are some factors, such as the fall in the price of raw materials, temporary? Or rather, will they prevent in a lasting way inflation from returning towards 2%? If the answer to the second question turned out to be yes, additional measures would be taken. In December we will take a decision based on the information we have available to us. In December the US Federal Reserve System (Fed) will take a decision on whether to maintain its key rates at zero or increase them. Will their decision influence yours? It will have no direct impact on our decision. Whatever the Fed decides, our monetary policy framework (zero rates, liquidity, “forward guidance” and asset purchases) allows us to keep interest rates low, no matter what happens in the rest of the world. Our policy protects the interest rate curve for the euro area from external shocks. What interests us above all is what the Fed’s decision tells us about the US economy.