NBM to decide on base rate on Thursday, with inflation at 8.6% and gas prices rising again from October

The National Bank of Moldova (NBM) will announce its next monetary policy decision on Thursday, 5 November 2026. The meeting comes after annual inflation rose to 8.6% in September, from 6.96% in August, and the regulated price of natural gas for households increased again from 1 October. Official data on prices in October will not be published until 10 November, after the meeting.

What will be decided on 5 November

The NBM Executive Committee sets the base rate, the benchmark interest rate for the central bank’s main operations with commercial banks, as well as the rates on overnight loans and deposits and the required reserve ratios. At its meeting on 17 September, the NBM unanimously raised the base rate from 7.50% to 9.00%. The rate on overnight loans was set at 11.00%, while the rate on overnight deposits was set at 7.00%. Required reserves remained at 18% for lei and 26% for freely convertible foreign currencies.

The September decision was the fourth rate increase in 2026. After keeping the rate at 5.00% in February and March, the NBM raised it to 6.50% in May, 7.00% in June, 7.50% in August and 9.00% in September.

The 5 November meeting is the penultimate one this year, according to the calendar approved by the NBM. The last meeting is scheduled for 17 December, and Inflation Report No. 4 will be released on 12 November.

How far is inflation from the target?

On 9 October, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that consumer prices rose by 1.7% in September compared with August and by 8.6% compared with September 2025. The NBM’s target is 5%, with a permitted deviation of ±1.5 percentage points, making the upper limit 6.5%.

September’s increase was driven mainly by services. According to the NBS, services became 4.3% more expensive in a single month. Natural gas tariffs rose by 40.8% and contributed about 1.1 percentage points to the increase in average consumer prices. Fuels and motor fuels added a further 0.34 percentage points, while food added only 0.06 percentage points.

Over the year, motor fuels remained the strongest source of pressure: diesel was 76.4% more expensive than in September 2025, while petrol was 42.3% more expensive. Excluding food, fuels and regulated prices, the NBS’s partial index shows an annual increase of 5.33%.

Gas: two increases in two months

The National Agency for Energy Regulation (ANRE) approved a first increase on 21 August, which took effect on 1 September. For consumers connected to low-pressure distribution networks, the price rose to 18,798 lei per 1,000 cubic metres, excluding VAT. With 8% VAT, this comes to 20.30 lei per cubic metre, compared with 14.42 lei previously. The 40.8% increase exactly matches the rise recorded by the NBS in its price index.

On 28 September, ANRE approved a second adjustment, effective from 1 October: 24,202 lei per 1,000 cubic metres, or about 26.14 lei per cubic metre including VAT. The agency explained the increase by citing a rise in the procurement cost for October–December 2026 to 17,050 lei per 1,000 cubic metres, from 12,150 lei. ANRE also cited the state of emergency in the energy and hydrological sectors, introduced from 26 September.

Compared with the August price, a cubic metre of gas now costs about 81% more. For consumption of 100 cubic metres, the bill for gas alone rises from about 2,030 lei at the September price to about 2,614 lei at the October price.

Editorial calculation (estimate, not official data): applying the method the NBS used for September—that is, multiplying the share of gas in the consumer basket (2.60%) by the price increase—the October rise could directly add about 0.7 percentage points to the monthly increase in prices. The actual figure will be published by the NBS on 10 November and may differ, depending on how the adjustment is recorded and on changes in other prices.

What the NBM said about the outlook

In its September decision, the NBM explained that inflationary pressures stem both from supply—that is, international prices for energy, food and raw materials—and from domestic demand, supported by household incomes. The bank revised upward its risks for the fourth quarter of 2026 and the first half of 2027 compared with its August forecast, and said that the balance of risks remained tilted towards inflation through the end of the year.

The forecast published in the August Inflation Report projected a peak of 9.2% in the fourth quarter of 2026, average inflation of 7.2% in 2026 and 6.2% in 2027, with inflation returning to the target range in the third quarter of 2027. The NBM also listed the main uncertainties: the timing and scale of regulated tariff adjustments, next year’s harvest, remittances, migration, external financing and the effects of the new fiscal policy for 2027.

The NBM has not announced what it will decide on 5 November. In its September statement, the bank said only that future decisions “will depend on the updated inflation outlook”.

What it means for loans and deposits

NBM data for September show that individuals took out new lei-denominated mortgage loans at an average interest rate of 8.08% and consumer loans at 10.85%. New lei-denominated term deposits held by households had an average interest rate of 6.11%.

A simple comparison with annual inflation of 8.6% shows that in September the average interest rate on lei term deposits was about 2.5 percentage points below the pace of price increases. The base rate of 9.00% was only 0.4 percentage points above annual inflation. The comparison uses past inflation, not expected inflation, so it is indicative only.

What comes next

• 5 November: the NBM’s monetary policy decision.

• 10 November: the NBS publishes the consumer price index for October, the first month with the second new gas price.

• 12 November: the NBM publishes Inflation Report No. 4, with an updated forecast.

• 17 December: the final monetary policy meeting of 2026.

What we still don’t know

It is not known how much of the second gas price increase will show up in October inflation, or whether the NBM will consider this effect temporary or persistent. The central bank’s updated forecast is also not yet known; it will be published after the meeting.