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Schedule of reception of citizens by the Executive Board of the National Bank of Moldova.
The registration of applicants for an audience is carried out based on a written request on the subject addressed.
Anca Dragu, Governor
1st Wednesday of the month: 14.00-16.00;
Telephone: +373 22 822 606.
Vladimir Munteanu, First Deputy Governor
2nd Wednesday of the month: 14.00-16.00;
Telephone: +373 22 822 606.
Tatiana Ivanicichina, Deputy Governor
3rd Wednesday of the month: 14.00-16.00;
Telephone: +373 22 822 607.
Constantin Șchendra, Deputy Governor
4th Wednesday of the month: 14.00-16.00;
Telephone: +373 22 822 607.
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National Bank and the members of its decision-making bodies shall be independent in exercising the tasks conferred upon them by law, and shall neither seek nor take instructions from public authorities or from any other authority.
In order to ensure and maintain price stability over the medium term, the National Bank’s aim will be to keep inflation (measured by Consumer Price Index) at the level of 5.0 percent annually with a possible deviation of ± 1.5 percentage points, considered to be optimal for growth and development of Moldova's economy over the medium-term.
National Bank shall have the exclusive right to issue on the territory of the Republic of Moldova banknotes and coins as legal tender, as well as commemorative and jubilee banknotes and coins as legal tender and for numismatic purposes.
National Bank is exclusively responsible for the licencing, supervision and regulation of financial institutions activity.
National Bank of Moldova acts as banker and fiscal agent of the State and shall receive from state bodies economic and financial information and documents, which are necessary for carrying out its tasks.
National Bank of Moldova supervises the payment system of the Republic of Moldova and promotes a stable and efficient functioning of the automated inter-bank payment system
National Bank of Moldova is an autonomous public legal entity and is responsible to the Parliament.
National Bank shall inform the public on the monetary policy strategy on the results of the macroeconomic analysis, the evolution of the financial market and on statistics, including with regard to monetary supply, crediting, balance of payments and the state of the foreign exchange market.
National Bank of Moldova is responsable for the compilation of the balance of payments, international investment position and the statistics of the external debt of the Republic of Moldova.
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Inflation Report no.3, August 2014
In recent years, some major advanced economies got locked into a liquidity trap, namely the inability to generate an economic recovery by cutting interest rates, as the relevant rates were already near zero. This is the case of Japan (since 90s) and the USA (since December 16, 2008).
The concept of “zero lower bound” implies that interest rates should not fall below zero. However, there have been episodes both historical and recent, in which some market interest rates became negative, and these episodes were quite isolated. Therefore, it is a theoretically possible fact, but rarely applied in practice. Financial markets are generally designed to operate under positive rates and might face significant deviation if the rates are negative. To avoid such disruptions, policymakers tend to keep short-term interest rates above zero (positive), even when trying to relax monetary policy in other dimensions. An example is the large purchase of assets to provide additional monetary stimulus used in recent years by the Federal Reserve System of the United States.
Thus, an appropriate decision of monetary policy authorities would be the use of a range of monetary policy instruments, namely the interest rates, with the primary aim of directing inflation. In turn, economic growth is also important for the proper functioning of the economy, but compared to inflation, economic growth can be also sustained by fiscal policies, for example, to reduce the unemployment rate. Stimulation of economic growth by reducing interest rates in the long run may lock the economy in a liquidity trap, recovery costs being significant.
Such a policy has been recently adopted by the European Central Bank (June 5, 2014). Thus, the interest rate on the main refinancing operations of the Eurosystem was reduced from 0.25 to 0.15 percent and the rate on the marginal lending facility was reduced to 0.4 percent. The interest rate on the deposit facility was reduced to minus 0.1 percent. Negative rates will be also applied to the average reserve holdings that exceed the required reserves and other deposits held with the Eurosystem.
Given the limited experience of markets to operate with interest rates at the zero lower bound, it is difficult to predict with certainty how the international markets will react in the long run to the European Central Bank policy. Although this decision is based on the low level of inflation and the ECB’s tendency to maintain it in the corridor of 2.0 percent target level of inflation, this policy should accelerate the economic recovery of the euro area. At least a first reaction, namely that through the exchange rate channel, is already evident, the European single currency depreciated against other major international currencies, which favors exports of euro area countries. However, if tax stimulus will not be sufficient to improve the situation on the labor market in the euro area, in the long run, the euro area economy may be stuck in a liquidity trap, and once the interest rate instruments range is lost, the ECB's efforts to sustain economic growth in the long run could be extremely costly.
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