TIRANA, August 3 – The Supervisory Council of the Bank of Albania decided to increase the base interest rate by bringing it from 1.25 percent to 1.75 percent on Wednesday. This is the third increase within this year.After the meeting of the Supervisory Council, the Governor of the Central Bank, Gent Sejko, said that it was deemed necessary to adapt the stance of monetary policy to the new conditions of increased inflation. According to him, the Supervisory Council continued to assess that the high levels of inflationary pressures are the primary risk to the sustainable and long-term growth of the country.”For this reason, in compliance with the objective of price stability, the Supervisory Council decided: to increase the basic interest rate by 0.5 percentage points, from the level of 1.25% to the level of 1.75%; to increase by 0.5 percentage points the overnight loan interest rate, from 2.25% to 2.75%, and to increase by 0.5 percentage points the overnight deposit interest rate, from 0.25% to 0.75%,” declared Sejko. The governor pointed out that, in the judgment of the Council, the normalization of monetary policy will create more suitable conditions for maintaining price stability and returning inflation to the target within the medium-term projection. /Argumentum.al