• Minister of Finance Mr. Kalousek will try to push through 1 January 2012 as the exact date for
euro adoption.
According to him,
euro implementation is a political project which should have set dates.
•
According to expectations, ECB left interest rates unchanged. Short-term inflation risks are, according to ECB president Trichet, fully balanced and inflation should drop until the end of the year.
• Bank of England increased interest rates by 25bps, also according to expectations, which means that prime rate is currently at 5.50%.
• US foreign trade deepened its deficit in March to
USD 63.9bn. This result is worse than February’s deficit of
USD 58.4bn and also behind expectations for deficit of
USD 60bn.
• Czech National Bank assesses inflation pressures from real economy as moderate. April’s inflation was 0.4% higher than current forecast.