Philippine Rate Decision Too Close to Call on Stagflation Risk

The Iran war’s fallout has made the Philippine central bank’s next policy move a tough call: tighten to tame price pressures from the energy crunch, or stand pat to support a fragile economy.

Thirty economists in a Bloomberg survey are evenly split on the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ decision on Thursday, with half expecting the target reverse repurchase rate to stay at 4.25%. The other half forecast a rate hike by 25 basis points to 4.5%.