The board of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) at a meeting on Thursday decided to retain refinancing rate at 22% per annum, the central bank said in a press release.

"The retaining of the moderate monetary and credit policy would allow mitigating risks for price stability that are strengthening due to turbulence in the global economy, as well as provide for achieving goals of reducing consumer inflation to 12% for the end of 2016 and 8% for the end of 2017," the NBU said.

The forecast for growth of monetary base in 2016 was revised downwards from 17.2% to 8.3% and for 2017 it is 8.3%.

The forecast for the increase of money supply was reduced from 16.8% to 10.5% and it is 11.5% for 2017.

As reported, the NBU raised the refinancing rate to 30% per annum on March 4, 2015. Until then, the rate was set at 19.5% since February 6, and 14% from November 13, 2014. From August 28, it was decreased to 27% and from September 25 – to 22% per annum.

The last time when the NBU set a higher rate was in 2000: from March 24, 2000, it was cut to 32% from 35% per annum, then on April 10 it was cut to 29% and further to 27% on August 15 per annum. In 2001, the NBU gradually, at six phases, lowered the rate to 12.5% per annum.