Ulaanbaatar
B.Lkhagvasuren: Bank of Mongolia will have policy on keeping policy interest rate stable
Economy
Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Today, the Standing Committee on Economy and the Bank of Mongolia (BoM) jointly organized a discussion on the topic, “Global environment and important issues in drafting and implementing economic policy”.
In his opening remarks, the Head of the Standing Committee on Economy D.Damba-Ochir highlighted the importance of increasing the foreign exchange reserves to protect the Mongolian economy from unexpected negative influences and improving its immunity. He said, “We are currently discussing about giving out more mortgage loans with the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Construction and Urban Development and BoM in aims of keeping and lowering the inflation to a single digit. We are also making it a priority to keep the exchange rate stable.”
Vice President of the BoM B.Lkhagvasuren said, “Due to the Federal Reserve raising their policy interest rate, most currencies’ exchange rate are weakening against USD. Despite weakening against USD, the MNT’s exchange rate has been becoming stronger against CNY and RUB. Currently, the BoM’s foreign exchange reserves is USD 2.8 billion, which is the equivalent of 6 months of import to Mongolia. However, the National Security Council of Mongolia has advised us to keept he foreign exchange reserves to be the equivalence of a year’s worth of import. Thus, the BoM has been prioritizing increasing the reserves and keeping the policy interest rate stable. We are currently working on keeping inflation at 8 percent for 2019-2020 and decreasing it to 6 percent in mid term.”
