Ukraine’s central bank more than doubled its benchmark interest rate on Thursday in an attempt to tackle double-digit inflation and defend the nation’s currency, the hryvnia.
The rate was raised by a whopping 15 percentage points, bringing it to 25% from 10%, a statement on the regulator’s website says.
The emergency measure is meant to “revive interest in hryvnia assets, reduce pressure on international reserves and have a deterrent effect on inflation,” the bank explained.
“This is a decisive step from the central bank – there were expectations on the market of a significant hike, but nobody saw such an increase,” Oleksiy Blinov, the head of research at Alfa Bank Ukraine told Bloomberg.