The National Bank of Serbia decided on Monday to keep its key policy rate at 9.75%.

Radovan Jelasic, the governor of the central bank, said that it was necessary to hold rates in order to ease inflation expectations. The governor said core inflation had risen 3.3% year-on-year in September because of higher prices for agricultural products, meat, and milk.

The other factors behind the decision were:

a decline in the growth of government-regulated products;

net wage growth in real terms of 3.6%;