Ingves: Hearing of the Riksdag Committee on monetary policy

Stefan Ingves began the hearing by stating the reasons for the Riksbank’s latest monetary policy decision to leave the repo rate unchanged at -0.25 per cent: “With the support of the Riksbank’s negative interest rate and bond purchases, Sweden has had good economic development and inflation in line with the target for several years. At our monetary policy meeting in September, we could note that development had largely been as expected. Economic activity is entering a calmer phase, both in Sweden and abroad, but Swedish resource utilisation remains fairly high. We therefore considered it appropriate to maintain the direction of monetary policy in the near term and to keep the forecast of raising the interest rate from this very low level at some point towards the end of the year or start of next year,” Mr Ingves explained. At the same time, he pointed out that the Riksbank is aware of the weaker sentiment and the low level of interest rates abroad. At the monetary policy meeting, the Executive Board therefore concluded that the interest rate would probably be raised at a very slow rate over the period ahead. “In this way, we will continue to support economic activity and the development of inflation in Sweden,” said Mr Ingves.