Dear colleagues, good afternoon. I'm happy to see you. We're about to begin the press conference by the Governor of the Bank of Russia and Deputy Governor Alexey Zabotkin. To begin with, we'll hear the statement by the Bank of Russia following the Board of Directors meeting.
Good afternoon. Today we have made the decision to keep the key rate at 14% per annum. The current price growth rate was high in July and August. The economy continued to grow at a moderate pace. Credit activity was elevated. The summer acceleration in price growth was mainly attributable to the situation in the fuel market. It is a one-off factor per se. However, it is affecting prices for a wider range of goods and services. Inflation expectations stay high as well. The Bank of Russia will need more data to assess the magnitude and duration of these effects and their impact on underlying inflation.
Furthermore, fiscal policy parameters are an important consideration for monetary policy. They are expected to be updated by the end of September. All of the above factors have provided grounds for making a pause in cutting the key rate at today's meeting. I will now explain the reasons behind our decision.
Firstly, inflation. During the summer months, inflation accelerated. Importantly, while the main factor of this acceleration in June was the direct contribution of petrol and diesel price growth, later its indirect effects began to materialize through the rise in businesses' costs along with the second-round effects related to the increase in inflation expectations and demand. So in July, measures of underlying inflation demonstrated growth. According to our estimates, they shifted to the range of 5% to 6% in annualized terms. These estimates might be updated after we receive full statistics for August. Household inflation expectations decreased in August while still significantly exceeding the levels of H1 2026. The expectations of businesses and the financial market have edged up since July. In the baseline scenario, we expect the decline in underlying inflation to resume as the effects associated with the temporary reduction in production capacities dissipate, provided that aggregate demand growth remains modest. However, the Bank of Russia needs to be sure that this is happening to cut the key rate.
Secondly, the economy. High-frequency data show that the economy continues to grow at a moderate pace in Q3 2026. In July, a rather wide range of industries recorded growth. Those experiencing disruptions at production facilities faced a considerable downturn. That said, business sentiment and expectations regarding output and demand have slightly improved overall according to the recent surveys. The rise in consumption decelerated somewhat in July while remaining high. In the summer months, it was supported by elevated demand for fuel. We will be able to assess the contribution of transitory and persistent factors to consumption growth more accurately in the next few months.
Investment activity has been gradually recovering following its weak dynamics in Q1 2026. Companies continue to implement large projects in a number of industries, namely in chemicals, energy, and transport vehicle manufacture. The tightness in the labor market is easing gradually. The proportion of businesses experiencing labor shortages is decreasing. Wage growth rates have edged down, although labor productivity growth is still lagging behind significantly. For inflation to decelerate sustainably, the gap between the growth rate of labor productivity and those of wages should narrow further. It is strongly preferable for the above to be achieved through faster growth of labor productivity. Overall, data for H1 2026 and high-frequency indicators for Q3 2026 show that economic growth is in line with our forecast.
Thirdly, monetary conditions. They remain moderately tight. The dynamics of nominal rates have been mixed. Deposit rates have edged up while loan rates have continued to decline gradually. According to our estimates, overall monetary tightness in real terms has decreased slightly since July. The propensity to save stays high. Household ruble funds with banks continue rising at a moderate pace. In the structure of savings, the proportion of current and savings accounts, cash money, and investments in real estate and financial market instruments is expanding.
July saw lending growth accelerate again, primarily in the corporate segment after more subdued dynamics in June. Coupled with elevated budget expenditures, this has led to the year-to-date increase in money supply running above the trajectory that was typical of the period of low inflation in 2016–2019. When evaluating monetary conditions in the coming months, we will pay particular attention to two factors. The first one is the sustainability and strength of corporate credit growth. The second factor is final budget projections, which are expected to be announced this month.
Now I would like to speak of external conditions. The situation in the Middle East continues to influence the environment in global markets. Prices for many commodities are rising in response to another round of escalation. In a number of major economies, inflation is accelerating and interest rates are going up. As for the Russian economy, the dynamics of physical export volumes are restrained by geopolitical factors and temporary disruptions at a number of logistical hubs. Simultaneously, demand for imports is rising, driven in part by the need to ensure the supply of petroleum products and replenish the reduced stocks. The combination of these factors caused the ruble to weaken somewhat in the summer months.
I will now speak of risks. We still consider that pro-inflationary risks prevail and believe that they have risen. The economy might return to the imbalance between demand and supply after they aligned in H1 2026. Demand growth might remain elevated as a result of a stronger fiscal impulse and an accelerated increase in lending. Concurrently, if the restoration of production facilities takes more time than assumed in the baseline scenario, this will constrain supply growth. As a result, price pressures might intensify. High inflation expectations might amplify these effects. Pro-inflationary risks are also associated with the tightness in the labor market and external conditions. A more considerable cooling of domestic demand as compared to our baseline estimates remains a disinflationary risk.
Winding up, I would like to comment on our future decisions. Price growth has sped up notably over recent months. This has been triggered by one-off factors that are beyond the influence of monetary policy. However, monetary policy can and should respond to their second-round effects, preventing a one-off acceleration in price growth from turning into a persistent trend. The above requires maintaining moderately tight monetary conditions. We have stated repeatedly that the key rate cannot be cut automatically, as monetary policy easing requires certain conditions to be in place. Our future decisions will be guided by the dynamics of inflation and inflation expectations as well as the balance of risks. The key rate path will be set to ensure a decline in inflation to 4% in 2027 and its stabilization at the target further on. Thank you for your attention.
Now dear colleagues, over to your questions. Please introduce yourselves and identify your agency. Margarita.
Good afternoon. I have a standing question. This is TASS News Agency. A standing one about the options that you considered today on the table, because you said a few words about the possible reduction of the key rate. It would be nice to understand what is the range, to what extent has it condensed?
Well, substantively, at today's meeting we discussed keeping the rate, and I guess, unlike the previous one, we really didn't go into any major debate about reducing it. With regard to there being a space for further reduction of the key rate, we will additionally specify when we do the update in October, but we should definitely recognize that the risks have risen and they continue to prevail, and that is something that we will definitely take into account.
Colleagues, your other questions, please. Elena.
Elena Fabrichnaya, Reuters. I'd like to find out the extent to which your assessment of the budget deficit changed, if at all. Have you reconsidered your expectations of how long it will take for the refineries to be recovered, because you expect it to take place until the end of the year? Also, the current period of high oil prices: we do see the way the situation became tight in the Red Sea and that strengthens logistical disruptions. So, how overall an extended period of high oil prices may affect your policies?
As for our prerequisites with regard to the budget and the fiscal system and any impact upon the domestic fuel market, we haven't changed our hypothesis simply because we haven't received any new information about the fiscal policy. We do expect additional definitions of the final budget parameters for the three-year period to come to us this month. And so if these specifications do not coincide with what we've reflected in our baseline scenario—to remind you, this year the deficit is 2%, next year is 1%, and half a percentage point of the deficit in 2028, and in 2029 a deficit-free budget—so if the trajectory is different, we will take account of it in our updated projections in October. Now with regard to the decommissioned capacities, we haven't changed our expectations either, because I believe that they're going to recover before the end of the year.
Alexey, I would ask you to comment on this point.
Yes. As far as the Middle Eastern situation is concerned, of course, the geopolitics there is far from a détente. As we used to say, the disinflationary impact of higher energy prices most apparently has already manifested itself fully in Q2 in our case, and further on the pro-inflationary impact is going to grow along with the way the higher prices for fuel and other commodities are going to cascade through the global supply chain and the cost of goods and services that we're importing. Actually, there's a very good article from the Bank for International Settlements which was published in August, which specifically demonstrates that, yes, the energy exporters are facing a pro-inflationary impact of big shocks on energy resources which is less compared to the energy importers, but nevertheless it's still net pro-inflationary.
My dear colleagues, Dmitry Moroko.
Dmitry Moroko, Russia 24. Could you please tell us how specifically, when making your decision today, did you take into account the fuel market situation, because your projection was stating that this particular shortage before the year is going to dissipate? What are you basing your expectations on?
When having a discussion about the key rate, we have paid considerable attention to the fuels market, which in itself we consider as a one-off factor, but the one that is continuing to influence a broad range of products and services. But what will be the resulting scale and the duration of such effects? It's premature to be precise because we need to take a look at how the situation further evolves and get more data. But we do adhere to the prerequisites that gradually the situation will become stable, and production capacities are going to rebound before the end of the year. We base our thinking on what kind of measures we see the government is taking, and businesses with government support are undertaking all possible measures in order to bring back the capacities which have temporarily been outed, but we will definitely monitor the situation further. Thank you.
Other colleagues, please. Vadim in the last row.
Vadim Visloguzov, Kommersant newspaper. My question is about the correlation between the key rate and inflation expectations. Looking from this side, it's almost like it is not there over the past 12 months, because since June last year inflation went down 1.5 times, but you know, 13% to 14% still remains. So can one consider that the impact from this factor has weakened somewhat? I'm not trying to say that one shouldn't take it into account, but when you were making the decision, it was not a priority?
Well, we continue to believe that the expectations of future inflation, as a minimum, are as important as anything else that affects the tightness of monetary policy, demand, and the decision with regard to fiscal policy, like observed inflation. So you need to consider it all in aggregate. The importance of it is not going down because the price expectations amongst households and businesses about the way prices are going to grow affect behavior and affect demand. But of course we also take into account the fact that it is quite natural that inflation expectations are decelerating slower than what we remember from a lengthy period of high inflation. The fact of inflation expectations being high right now—I would underscore again, not only amongst households, but also amongst businesses and analysts—is one of the factors which restricts the room for further key rate reduction and requires us to maintain a very cautious approach. So we will consider the reduction of the key rate to be stable only if we see that inflation expectations also demonstrate a stable reduction.
All right, the next question comes online from Yevgeny Petrov, Business Petersburg from St. Petersburg, please.
Good afternoon. You've stated that the accumulated tightness of monetary policy created conditions for inflation to go back to the 4% target already in the second half of 2026. Recently, baseline inflation expectations were raised up to 7%. Are these two things not contradictory? Does it mean, in order for you to achieve the inflation target, a high key rate will be required for a longer period of time than had been expected before? Thank you.
We don't see any contradiction here, because it is true that in July at our last board meeting we updated upwards our expectation for inflation for this year up to 6%–7% by 1.5 percentage points. The reason for this review was the ongoing situation in the fuels market. What we were saying is that, as far as the stable part is concerned—the current-period price growth, not the annual one—it will stabilize close to 4% towards the end of the year. That still remains to be something that we hope to achieve, against the condition that the fuel effects are going to subside in accordance with our expectations and in line with what the government is undertaking. So keeping the key rate unchanged today would also be conducive to maintaining contained domestic demand growth so as not to allow for the secondary round effects to strengthen. In July, we also brought up our expectation towards the key rate for 2027, meaning to say that current monetary policy is expected to be tighter; there is less space for cutting it down compared to what we believed in the first half of the year. One of the reasons is also the shift towards 2029 of the period within which we are going to achieve a zero primary deficit, which means that the contribution from government demand is going to be stronger. There will be greater support for the national economy, which will require more constrained dynamics in private lending so that the whole economy goes back to a balanced growth path and low inflation.
Thank you. Dear colleagues, please, in the last row.
Good afternoon, Pavel Evgeniy from InvestFuture Agency. In your last statement, you said, and today as well, that the future of the global economy is worsening, and overall you also talked about AI—if something happens and something goes wrong, that would transform itself into some sort of a risky scenario. It's hard to understand in what way a poorer outlook in the tech companies might impact a human being living in the city of Tambov in Russia. That's my first question. And second, doesn't the central bank plan to change its inflation target point? Because businesses are also saying that it's hard to achieve that target, maybe you should raise it. Well, thank you very much.
With regard to the first question, the situation related to a possible deflation of assets related to booming AI is not so much a trigger, but just one of the elements of the risk scenario which we considered in one of the parts of our monetary policy guidelines. The main risk within this scenario, if you take a closer look at it, is an accumulated imbalance in the global economy: large volumes of sovereign debt, and against global inflation growing, the cost of debt servicing is climbing further up, which may lead to a situation where local stock market risks and crises might impact other industries. So this risk of accumulated imbalances in the global economy we consider to be one of the elements of the risk scenario. Within the same kind of risk scenario, we expect that there could be much stronger sanction pressure and so on and so forth. So this is a hypothetically large-scale crisis, but with one caveat: its probability of happening we consider to be a not very probable, hypothetical scenario. But again, it will depend upon what central banks are going to do.
With regard to changing the target point: during our last review of monetary policy, we conducted a survey of which particular inflation value could impact national well-being. And the survey resulted in telling us that we shouldn't really bring it up, but bring it down. Of course, in order to switch to that, you need to have a preparatory period. And in the second monetary policy review, we're going to discuss it again. We do not consider the possibility of raising the inflation target, thinking that it is going to be particularly detrimental and harmful. Those who propose this believe that rates are going to go down because of it. But on the contrary, they're only going to go up, and credit availability and affordability will decrease, which would mean a higher premium, so rates are not going to be moderate. Actually, emerging market economies, many of which started with a 4% inflation target, were trying to bring it down specifically in order to achieve growing well-being, more moderate rates, and more affordable lending. So the rationale here is completely the reverse. Thank you.
Anna Vagina, Frank Media. The ruble has considerably weakened during August; the dollar grew 1.77 rubles. To what extent does the current ruble weakening—actually, you already mentioned that imports do bring a certain contribution to the weakening of the national currency—to what extent might it affect the changing of the key rate, and how may the ruble exchange rate alter later on?
I believe it is important to begin mentioning the way exchange rate changes might impact inflation. It not so much depends upon what kind of exchange rate change occurs within any particular period, but to what extent this particular exchange rate deviates from the expectations that businesses have in the first place when they put together their plans and when they reflect a certain exchange rate in their plans. So one should say that the current exchange rate is very close to business expectations. We run our surveys, we see it out of our monitoring activities, and since the beginning of the current year these expectations haven't grown. During the year they have been fluctuating, but right now they are at approximately the same level as at the beginning of the year. Consequently, the scale of this exchange rate shift in terms of its impact upon prices is always more moderate than what one should expect from an automatic translation of exchange rate changes from one extremity to another.
Now, as far as the passthrough effect itself is concerned, our estimates haven't changed, but the final effect, as I said, does depend upon expectations toward the exchange rate. Not only that, but the stock of imported goods, domestic demand, and many other parameters. So the exchange rate impact upon inflation has always been moderate. I mean, moderate by a one percentage point change in an effective ruble exchange rate, we see, brings up inflation by not more than 0.1 percentage points. Over the past few years, this particular phenomenon has slowed down.
Another important thing when we are assessing the correlation between exchange rate dynamics and inflation is systemic exchange rate weakening when inflation is low. That practically never happens. These things are incompatible.
Dear colleagues, please, Victoria in the second row.
Well, if in a situation with a 14% key rate we see the lending process accelerating, how should one interpret it? Is it a short-term, short-lived upswing, or will it remain the same even if the key rate remains at 14%? Thank you.
First of all, I believe that this is an accumulated effect from the reduction of the key rate, which we started to bring down in June last year, and over the period we brought it down by seven percentage points, which is not a small measure. But looking over the past several months, one may say that the growth in retail lending, particularly if you exclude the mortgage market, remained quite moderate in its growth. If you take a look at the stats and recent data that we have in terms of unsecured consumer lending without mortgages, by July it was 2% growth in annualized terms, which is not too much. Now, corporate lending indeed demonstrated a high growth rate, almost at 14%.
Now, regarding the reasons behind the acceleration of corporate lending, there could be several factors at play that one may consider; you can't really separate one from another and measure it quantitatively. But the factors that may affect it include that we see businesses have improved their expectations over future demand—that is what our monitoring shows. Price expectations amongst businesses have also grown, and so, respectively, in real terms monetary conditions do not seem to be so restraining, because against price growth expectations, the real tightness of monetary policy becomes softer. One should also take into account that lending growth continues to be supported by subsidized and quasi-subsidized lending rates. With regard to mortgages, where we have a big share of subsidized loans—because while the share of market-based lending grew, the share of subsidized lending up until now exceeds 50%, not like it used to be at 80%, but still it remains too much—with regard to corporate lending, I may say that about one quarter of loans currently goes at a rate which is two percentage points below the key rate, which is a big share of loans that businesses receive at much lower rates than the market is offering.
So this factor and the big share of subsidized loans requires stronger tightness from monetary policy in order to keep inflation down. We are very mindful of the way lending is growing and the money aggregates, which apart from lending are being affected by funds coming through the fiscal channel. But if corporate lending remains very active and becomes stable, it means that monetary tightness is not enough to ensure balanced growth.
Thank you, dear colleagues. Diana.
Thank you. Diana Zhukova, Expert journal. I have a question about government support for business, because government support should focus itself upon effective operators, and this is a statement that is very close to you as a regulator, which recently was also mentioned by Oleg, your colleague. Recently, it was joked that effective businesses might be affected because the government is not supporting them. So my question is this: which companies do you believe could be described as effective, which are worthy of support, and where does that line run between effective government support and a softer monetary policy? Can one express this kind of support in any substantive monetary terms?
Thank you very much for the question. Well, who one should support is the government's prerogative. I would express my opinion: I believe that the government, speaking about the economy, should first and foremost invest into the development of infrastructure—transportation, manufacturing, social—the kind of infrastructure that everyone is using, and support critically important projects of import substitution. If the government still has resources, then support those who operate in a competitive environment. That means that one should give preference to those who demonstrate greater efficiency. What it means is greater labor productivity, a higher added value, and a bigger return from invested funds.
Now with regard to where that line runs, any measures that might stimulate greater government demand would definitely impact future inflation. The way this impact plays out, and respectively upon the decisions of monetary policy, depends upon the current environment. It is not always the same. Let me remind you—maybe many have forgotten—back in 2020 when we were going through the pandemic and market demand went down, we reduced the key rate down to 4.25%, which was a very low rate. We believed that the fiscal stimulation of demand during that period was a good thing because that helped the economy return to a stable position. In 2020, additional government demand and additional subsidies worked in a countercyclical way, preventing the economy from sliding into long unemployment and disinflation. But the current environment shows contrary conditions. Inflation expectations are high, which means effectively that any additional ruble of government demand and government incentives for demand pushes us further away from reducing the key rate.
Thank you. Next question online from the website Argumenty i Fakty from Saratov; I will read it out: "The Central Bank has already acknowledged that the fuel crisis accelerates inflation, but for some farming regions such as the Saratov region, where agriculture and grain transportation are quite extensive, that is very sensitive. How does the Central Bank consider secondary-round effects from fuel prices for farming regions? Do existing monetary instruments help you to regulate it?"
Well, the availability and affordability of fuels is important for all regions, including the Saratov Oblast. You mentioned the farming industry and transportation of grain within these sectors. Basically, diesel fuel is being used, which happily enough has risen in price, but not to the extent of other types of fuels. With regard to the fuel situation and its impact upon price growth, its direct effect we see in gasoline prices, but there are also indirect effects which manifest themselves in time, meaning that transportation and logistical costs are translated into prices for other goods and services. In our August data, we see this phenomenon playing out. And finally, there are second-round effects, as we heard from previous questions: higher price growth expectations, which logically grew in July and in August went down amongst households, though businesses haven't demonstrated that.
As the situation normalizes in the petrol market, we believe that the impact from these factors is going to dissipate. Why is it important? Because fears over the way prices might grow further specifically could influence actual price growth. But the scale of such influences depends upon the way these costs are being translated into other prices of goods and services from overall price growth. If it remains moderate, then the possibility of it being translated into other prices is going to be not as strong. As I used to say, such a one-off factor is something that we cannot control—I mean fuel prices and those supplies—but with what we do, we can maintain a balance between supply and demand and prevent the second-round effects from becoming stronger. To put it simply, our task is to make sure that today's fuel price growth does not turn into high inflation tomorrow. Thank you.
Other colleagues, please. Zulfia.
Good afternoon. Zulfia Khamidova, RIA Novosti. What is your assessment of the launch of the digital ruble as of October 1st, and how successful do you believe it is going to be?
We started according to plan with the banks that were supposed to do that. We started in a very normal way, I believe, from the 1st of September. Of course, over the first few days some customers of certain banks experienced difficulties with opening up digital ruble accounts and with the possibility of doing certain transactions. But I would like to say these difficulties have been alleviated expediently, and I would like to extend credit to the banks, who really were on top of it. We don't see any problems, we don't see any complaints, and so that really speaks for itself. Now in terms of improving the customer journey, I would like to underscore that this is always about the balance between simplicity and security. We are currently working in parallel on reducing the number of clicks that a person has to do in order to open up an account and to do this or that transaction, but with a compulsory high level of safety and security. Overall, we see strong interest amongst businesses and households. The number of newly opened accounts has been growing; over the 10 days, we've had 87,000 accounts.
opened and more than 50,000 transactions done. Of course, many people are just giving it a try to see how it all happens. But I hope that they will appreciate the convenience. I mean, it's up to them to choose what they want to use. We don't do any regional statistics because the digital ruble platform is a universal one across Russia irrespective of the region or location.
Izvestia in the last row, please.
Izvestia newspaper. At the end of last year, you described the new budget as disinflationary. You noted then that the expansion of the fiscal deficit is worse in its effect upon inflation. What do you think about the further probability of the current fiscal deficit growing, and the probability of the October board meeting with regard to the key rate decision having to be reviewed upwards? Yes, thank you.
A high primary budget deficit and its size is an important factor which affects both demand and inflation. Just for reference, let me remind you what we are basing our expectations upon, which definitely can be updated as the government announces its budget parameters. So we act upon the understanding that the Minister of Finance made an announcement that the transition to zero deficit is going to occur later, in 2029, but the trajectory towards it is going to be announced later by the Ministry of Finance. It is going to be known once the budget draft is submitted to the Russian parliament, and so we decided to come up with our own expectations in order to specify our projections and forecast during the past Board of Directors meeting. So we believe that this trajectory is going to be a smooth one, to 1.5% and then 2% and 1%, but based on that, we shifted the trajectory of the key rate for 2027 by two percentage points. I mean to say that against the decline of the deficit, the softening of the monetary policy is going to take place. If you take a look at our forecast, we are provisioning for a softer monetary policy, but in a slower way compared to our previous expectation. And so in this way, our monetary policy for 2027 is going to be tighter than what was mentioned in the baseline scenario from April. But I would like to say again, these changes are the ones that we have already taken into account in our July forecast. The next forecast update is going to be in October, and so we expect that the budget parameters from the Ministry of Finance will become known by then. And so if the government expects a much higher primary deficit compared to what we've written into our forecast, that would require tighter monetary policy. Now, in case they come up with a faster consolidation, on the contrary, we may reconsider our trajectory towards a certain softening. And the softening to 1.5% to 1% is about the primary federal budget deficit rather than all of the budget system deficit. The monetary policy is being impacted by the general picture of government finance, which is not limited to the federal budget, but the federal budget remains to be the basic driver there.
Colleague, Money Doesn't Sleep channel.
Money Doesn't Sleep channel. My question is a follow-up about the budget parameters and the Bank of Russia's assessment over the deficit-free budget for 2029. In case the budget parameters that are going to be announced towards the end of September run apart from the Bank of Russia's expectation with regard to monetary tightness, will the bank be eager to reconsider it upwards? And my second question is about the money supply growing, specifically household deposits currently exceed 70 trillion rubles. Does the Bank of Russia see any risk of pro-inflation here as far as consumer behavior is concerned and consumption growth as well?
Well, with regard to the budget impact upon our monetary policy, I've generally responded. Hopefully we will see it this month, because we have certain prerequisites. In case the final proposals with regard to the budget call for a larger deficit in the course of three years, yes, that would mean a much tighter monetary policy, and the other way around respectively. So we will further update the trajectory of the key rate not only with regard to the budget parameters, because by then we'll receive the information. The key rate trajectory, yes, an important impact we do see coming from fiscal policy, but this is not the only one. We will take a look at everything—actual inflation, inflation expectations—specify the whole forecast of economic development, and based on that look at the possible trajectory of the key rate. Let me remind you that this is also just a forecast; the key rate trajectory is what we consider with all the facts at every Board of Directors meeting. Now, as far as deposits are concerned, no, we do not see any risks here because the savings propensity gradually goes down but remains high, and it goes down in a natural way along with monetary conditions becoming softer. Now, the fact that over the period deposits have grown, yes, the attractiveness of the rate and the monetary conditions, but in a growing economy, deposits are growing in its wake. So we are taking a look at the money supply aggregates. Currently they are at a lower boundary, slightly above the range of money supply growth which was characteristic for the period of low inflation, which is a concern to us, but we expect that the money supply characteristics will further slow down.
Interfax agency. You described various options that you considered on the table. Was there any chance that you considered the possibility of raising the key rate? Also, have you considered in any substance the attacks on logistical infrastructure? Do you see any risks here? Do you expect the same fast rebounding of these capacities as you see in various manufacturing industries?
As I said, in a substantive way, we discussed only keeping the rate as it was. We practically didn't go into any other debates. Now, with regard to the impact upon the logistical supply chain from such attacks, the influence therefrom upon inflation is still insignificant.
