The compulsory reserve rate for foreign loans was increased from 30 to 40 per cent. This was due to the fact that after a mild decrease earlier this year, borrowing abroad accelerated once again.
The compulsory reserve base fell from 6.2 billion kuna in January to 5.9 billion in March, but then jumped to 8.8 billion in April.
The higher reserve base is expected to make borrowing abroad less profitable for banks and indicate that the central bank is willing to adopt even stricter measures in order to keep the external debt's movements in relation to the gross domestic product within acceptable frameworks.
The fact that commercial banks deposit about 900 million kuna with the central bank daily and that the recent daily surplus liquidity revolves around 1.3 billion kuna are the reasons why the Decision on Compulsory Reserves was changed.
(EUR1 = 7.3 kuna)