Bank of Russia cuts interest rate by 0.5%

Bank of Russia today announced further cut in its key lending rate by 0.5 percentage point to 11.5 per cent, a third cut since end of April, to stimulate the crisis ridden economy amid forecasts of annual inflation below 13 per cent.

Earlier, on May 14, the central bank had cut interest by 0.5 points to 12 per cent.

The move is intended to bring down interest rates on loans granted to the manufacturing sector to help domestic enterprises, Channel 1 TV reported.

According to federal Rosstat statistics inflation stood at 0.2 per cent for the week of May 26-June 1, and reached 6.8 per cent from the beginning of this year - 0.9 per cent less than for the same period of 2008.