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Due to the country’s strong inflation, the central bank may increase the rate to 11%.

BOGOTA On Friday, at its next-to-last meeting of the year, Colombia’s central bank will raise interest rates on loans to 11%. This is in line with what other countries are doing to try to stop inflation from going up too fast.

In a recent Reuters survey, 12 out of 14 experts expected that the seven-member board would raise the benchmark rate by 100 basis points, while one analyst forecast a 75-basis-point hike and another predicted a 50-basis-point increase.

Related: Column-Central bank guns went up because banks got more money. Mike Dolan

The rate would be at its highest point since July 2001 if the majority projection came true.

According to Camilo Perez, chief economist of Banco de Bogota, another rate increase of 50 points will take place in December. “We estimate 100 basis points for the meeting,” he said. “But we think another increase in the interest rate is essential because inflation keeps rising.”

Through the end of September, inflation was up 11.44% yearly, nearly four times the bank’s long-term 3% target. Analysts forecast that the figure won’t reach the objective until after 2023.

According to Perez, the current monetary policy cycle is the most aggressive that we have seen in this century.

Since the beginning of the current cycle in September 2021, the bank has raised the rate by 825 basis points.

Jose Antonio Ocampo, the government’s finance minister who sits on the board and thinks that high inflation is a supply-side problem, said last week that it would be hard to keep the rate from going up along with other central banks.

Ocampo requested on Wednesday that the bank’s meeting on Friday cover futures market liquidity.

Some analysts haven’t ruled out the possibility that the bank will get involved in the currency market. This is because the value of the Colombian peso has dropped sharply because of unrest around the world and market scepticism in response to the leftist government’s promises to change the tax system and ban new oil contracts.

Related: Singapore’s central bank is thinking of ways to regulate crypto trading and stablecoin.

The bank permitted dollar auctions using forwards and swaps during the coronavirus outbreak.

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