<Anchor>
The Bank of Korea raised the base rate again after three months.
It is expected to raise at least two or three more this year to stabilize prices.
This is reporter Im Tae-woo.
<Reporter>
The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of Korea raised the base interest rate by 0.25 percentage points from 1.25% to 1.5%.
Situational awareness was so common that the six meeting attendees made a unanimous decision.
The biggest reason is inflation, which has soared to the 4% range.
In the meantime, the BOK has predicted that the inflation rate will remain at 3.1% this year as inflation will go down after the summer.
However, he explained that he had to tighten the money line because he thought that the price would rise more than expected due to the Ukraine crisis.
[Joo Sang-young / Acting Chairman of Monetary Policy Committee: I heard that there is a possibility that inflationary pressure may be prolonged than expected due to the Ukraine crisis.]
It seems that cooperation with the new government, which puts price stability as its top priority, was also considered.
[Seong Tae-yoon/Professor, Department of Economics, Yonsei University: I think that it is necessary to continuously raise the base rate because it is difficult to find additional growth engines in the absence of price stability and people's living expenses can deepen.] The
US situation is also a problem is.
The US is expected to raise its key interest rate by 0.5 percentage points in a row starting next month, which could lead to US interest rates higher than ours.
If the interest rate is inverted, we have preemptively raised our interest rate to the extent that foreign funds can escape by chasing the expensive dollar.
However, as it is difficult to solve both inflation and the US with this increase alone, there are many expectations that the Bank of Korea will raise the base rate at least two or three more times within this year.