Russia cuts interest rate for fourth time this year
Russia's central bank on Friday cut its key interest rate to 8.5 percent, the fourth reductions this year as inflation hits a record low.
The bank said it took the decision to slice 50 points off the rate after "inflation expectations resumed their decline".
In a statement, the Russian bank said it would "continue to conduct a moderately tight monetary policy" in order to maintain inflation close to 4%.
But it also said that "during the next two quarters, the Bank of Russia deems it possible to cut the key rate further."
The central bank is still struggling to breathe life into the Russian economy as it slowly emerges from the longest recession of President Vladimir Putin's rule on the bank of low oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine.
The bank dramatically increased its interest rates following the crash of the ruble in late 2014 and has been gradually chipping away at the key rate since then in bid to bolster the economy.
After three consecutive cuts, the bank chose to not to lower them further during its last meeting in July due to a worries over inflation.
But those fears proved unfounded and inflation in August fell to a post-Soviet low of 3.3 percent.
That is far from the 15 percent seen in the months following the height of the monetary crisis at the end of 2014, but the bank warned it continues to see "medium term risks of inflation overshooting 4%".
Russia's economy is expected to grow by between 1.7 percent and 2.2 percent according to central bank estimates after two years of recession.
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