MOSCOW, Nov 9: Russia’s central bank held its main interest rate in check on Friday after a surprise slowdown in October inflation snapped a trend of sharply rising consumer prices through the second half of the year.

The bank’s board left the refinancing rate unchanged at 8.25 per cent in the face of slowing economic expansion and a downtick in consumer price increases to a year-on-year rate of 6.5 per cent in October from 6.6 per cent the month before.

The board said current trends still meant that the annual target inflation rate of 7.0 per cent — already revised up once by the government — was still in danger even if the monthly pressures “had slightly eased”.

“We noted in a slowdown in the rise of prices for a number of food products and the rise in interest rates conducted by the Bank of Russia in September 2012... could help form more measured inflation expectations,” the board said in a statement. Russia had become the world’s biggest economy to raise rates this year.—AFP