Czech c.banker sees slower rate hikes - agency

...Vice-Governor Miroslav Singer was quoted as saying on Monday.

"Because the crown has appreciated in the last months, the (interest rate) increases, in my mind, can be slower than they have been, but there is still room for rates to go up," Singer was quoted by Dow Jones Newswires as saying in an interview.

Singer said the CNB was getting signals that economic growth, running at about 6 percent annually for the third year running, was creating inflationary pressures.

"The current Czech economy is exactly one that likely will build inflationary pressures, and everything seems to be suggesting that we still are likely to go higher with rates sooner or later," he was quoted as saying.

The CNB raised interest rates to 3.25 percent in August in the third such move this year, but the firm crown and uncertainty fed by the global credit crunch led policymakers to keep them unchanged in September.

Singer joined fellow policy board member Vladimir Tomsik in signalling a diminishing scope for more additional rate hikes. For Tomsik's comments on Oct. 11, click on [ID:nL11400989].

The policy board is due to review policy next on Oct. 25 when its decision will be based on an updated quarterly inflation projection, which will take into account the crown's 4.5 percent rally against the euro since early July.

The previous forecast in July saw inflation quickening towards the 4 percent upper edge of the CNB's comfort zone in December, from September's 2.8 percent. The CNB has 3 percent target, with a tolerance band of 1 percentage point either side.

[PRAGUE/Reuters/Finance.cz]