The Czech National Bank is expected to raise its prime interest rate today for the third consecutive time. Specifically, finance experts anticipate that the two-week repo rate will be brought up to 0.75 percent, a hike of 25 bps. The bank is responding to an economy that’s growing as fast as any in the European Union (last year’s GDP growth was 4.5 percent) and that has the lowest unemployment rate of all. Wage inflation now threatens to derail further growth, leading to the central bank’s efforts to bring things back under control. “Economic activity continues to develop positively, the labor market is breaking records, wages are rising and the consumer confidence has hit its historic highs,” Jakub Seidler (ING) told Hospodářské noviny.
