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MOSCOW, March 22 (Reuters) – The following are highlights from Russian central bank chief Elvira Nabiullina’s news conference following the bank’s interest rate decision:

ON KEY RATE DECISION

“Today, the board of directors…. took the decision to keep the key rate unchanged… There are grounds to believe that the decisions to increase the rate last year were enough.”

ON INFLATION

“We expect to see year-end 2019 inflation at a lower rate – at between 4.7 percent to 5.2 percent. We had earlier forecasted 5.5 percent.”

“Monthly price increase rates are already slowing down. Annual inflation will peak in March-April… Value added tax (VAT) has added 0.6-0.7 percentage points to annual inflation.”

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