Czech central bank chief: staff urged bigger hike than the 125-bps made

PRAGUE (Reuters) – The Czech National Bank’s staff recommended a bigger interest rate rise than the 125 basis points delivered by the board at its monetary policy meeting on Wednesday, Governor Jiri Rusnok said.

“We evaluated the broader context, which suggested that it was not necessary to go all the way with the staff proposal, and that doing 25 basis points less was not a problem,” Rusnok said in an interview for Czech Television on Wednesday evening.

The central bank raised its main interest rate to 7.0% on Wednesday, battling inflation at a nearly three-decade high while also backing continued market interventions to support the crown.

(Reporting by Robert Muller; Editing by Bradley Perrett)