Country Report Maldives April 2019

Outlook for 2019-20: Monetary policy

The MMA's main role is to ensure price stability, although legislation also tasks it with maintaining an adequate level of international reserves and promoting non-inflationary economic growth. The Authority achieves monetary stability partly through the peg between the rufiyaa and the US dollar. In view of the peg, the MMA has little scope to conduct an independent monetary policy. However, the MMA also uses minimum reserve requirements for banks and open-market operations as instruments to control credit creation and money supply. As economic growth will ease in 2019-20, we believe that the central bank will seek to maintain a fairly accommodative policy stance to provide support to the economy. Its actions should prevent market lending and deposit rates from increasing in 2019.

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