Czech industrial production unexpectedly strong in Aug, NBP’s Gilowska resigns from the Monetary Policy Council

Regional currencies closed barely changed on Friday. The koruna underperformed its peers and eventually weakened by about 0.1 percent, even though it was strengthening right after the release of minutes from September’s CNB meeting.

The minutes unveil that some members of the CNB board questioned beneficial effects of interventions against the koruna in the current economical situation. Moreover, exceptional results of industrial production in August may further calm down those members of the board who have been in favour of interventions; fresh figures show that industrial production expanded by 1.6% Y/Y in August (mainly thanks to manufacturing of motor vehicles) which was a much better outcome than markets expected (-1.3% Y/Y). Significant rebound in new orders (+12.3% Y/Y) is another good piece of news. Although we remain cautiously optimistic with regard to the future due to a still-fragile pickup in foreign demand, the latest PMI figures indicate that upswing in Central Europe’s export-oriented industry is gathering momentum. This is also clearly evident from our forwardlooking indicators (Flashes) for individual Central European countries, which continued to improve, suggesting that the hard data from industry may not at all be bad in the months to come.

In Warsaw, Professor Zyta Gilowska resigned from her post in the Monetary Policy Council of the National Bank of Poland. In our view, Mrs. Gilowska has ranked among the most hawkish members of the board.