On Tuesday, Central European currencies experienced a calm session. The most interesting news (with no impact on the koruna) came probably from the Czech politics - Prime Minister Necas struggled to find support for a new law that should introduce, among others, a VAT rise by 1 percentage point as of 2013. Necas announced he would propose the same package again and would bind it with a confidence vote in case the draft law did not pass in the first round, which would make the rejection of the law more difficult (especially for coalition MPs with weak chances to be reelected in the next parliamentary elections).
Today, the National Bank of Poland’s (NBP) meeting is a regional eye-cacher. We believe the NBP should stay on hold now. Although deteriorating macro-figures
point to the possibility of an interest rate cut, hawks among Polish central bankers have had a clear majority in the past months - 8 out of 10 voted for the rate hike in May. On the top of that, inflation expectations of Polish households (closely watched by the MPC) soared to 4.4% in August. More likely, we expect that the central bank (NBP) might cut interest rates in November when a new inflation report will be released. By then, inflation expectations might ease as well hand in hand with falling inflation.