- Decision
- Maintain
- Rate change
- 0 bps
- discount rate
- 9%
The Board of the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic on 28 April 2025 left the discount (key) rate unchanged at 9.00 percent, judging that inflation at 6.9 percent in April—comfortably within its 5–7 percent medium-term target—allows it to support brisk economic activity while monitoring risks from buoyant domestic demand and looming tariff adjustments. The rate has been steady at 9.00 percent since at least January 2025. The central bank noted stable conditions in interbank money and foreign-exchange markets and said excess banking-system liquidity continues to be actively managed with its instruments as credit to the real sector and banks’ resource bases expand. Real GDP grew 13.1 percent y/y in the first quarter, driven by services, construction and industry, while consumer prices have risen 1.96 percent year-to-date. Externally, heightened geopolitical tensions, trade fragmentation and volatile global commodity and financial markets, alongside still-elevated inflation in some trading partners, sustain uncertainty. The National Bank pledged to maintain a balanced stance and signalled readiness to adjust policy if price-stability risks intensify, with the next rate decision scheduled for 26 May 2025.
Rate evolution
The National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic tightened policy by 275 basis points over the period, lifting the policy rate from 9.25% in July 2025 to 12.00% in February 2026, after an August pause and a January hold, and then kept it unchanged through August, most recently on August 24 with effect from August 25. Early decisions were driven by inflation above the 5-7% target, initially tied to seasonal food pressures and electricity tariff revisions but reinforced by strong growth, domestic demand and investment, while the Bank consistently flagged elevated external uncertainty from geopolitical tensions and volatile food prices.
It later stressed a shift in price pressures toward non-food goods and services, imported fuel and energy costs and secondary effects, and by February a stronger fiscal impulse, wider output gap and resilient consumer demand, which prompted tightening. In July, the Bank said restrictive monetary conditions remained necessary as inflation since the start of 2026 had reached 6.5%, or 11.3% in annual terms as of July 17, with food and fuel prices rising amid geopolitical tensions, volatile global commodity markets and risks to oil product supplies through the Strait of Hormuz. In August, it noted that consumer prices had risen 7.3% since the start of 2026 and annual inflation stood at 11.7% as of August 14, as higher fuel costs fed into transport and production expenses, global food price volatility lifted food prices, and domestic factors drove an 11.1% increase in service prices. With real gross domestic product growth at 11.1% in January-July, supported by construction investment and consumption, rising incomes and expanding credit, the Bank judged that restrictive conditions and active regulation of excess banking system liquidity remained necessary to limit secondary effects from external inflation and said it could adjust policy if risks to price stability emerge.