[Courtesy of Bank of Korea]
Starting next year, the Bank of Korea will hold rate-setting policy meetings eight times a year instead of the current practice of convening every month.
This is in line with practices of central banks in advanced economies.
The U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank hold policy meetings eight times a year. The British and Japanese central banks also have decided to reduce their respective meeting frequency to eight times from next year.
The BOK also said the names of the dissenters at the rate meetings will be disclosed on the day of the event, instead of disclosing them two weeks later when the minutes are released, as it does now.
The South Korean central bank has cut rates four times since August of last year in 25-basis point moves to bring the base rate to a record low 1.50 percent. The last cut was in June.
The central bank's next policy meeting will be on Jan. 14.
BOK last week set its consumer inflation target at 2 percent for the 2016-2018 period, compared with a 2.5-3.5 percent range it had for the three-year period ending this year
But BOK Governor Lee Ju-yeol on Wednesday warned against interpreting its new inflation target as suggesting a further interest rate cut soon.
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Some economists have taken the new target, set much higher than November's annual test inflation rate of 1.0 percent, as indicating that the BOK would further cut the policy interest rate to boost inflation.
By Alex Lee
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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