National Bank of Georgia (NBG) kept refinancing rate unchanged at 8% saying that at this stage there was no need to further tighten monetary policy.

In a bid to keep inflation under control the central bank increased refinancing rate to 8% from 7.5% in February, which was kept unchanged since October.

Annual inflation accelerated to 13.7% in February.

“The inflation caused by the external shocks is a temporary phenomenon and according to the current forecasts it is expected that the inflation rate will start decreasing in several months,” NBG’s monetary policy committee said in a statement after meeting on March 16.

It also said that the central bank’s recent policy of monetary tightening had already “started to influence the economy”, reflected in the decrease of both GEL and foreign currency loans’ growth rates.

“As a result the seasonally adjusted growth rate of broad money aggregates has been close to zero since the beginning of the year, whereas respective annual growth rates have been decreasing,” NBG’s monetary policy committee said.