Economic activity in Sweden is strong and inflation is close to the target of 2 per cent. Rapidly rising energy prices have helped to push up inflation. If energy prices are disregarded, inflationary pressures are still moderate. As it is important for economic activity to continue to be strong and have an impact on price growth, monetary policy needs to remain expansionary.

The Executive Board has therefore decided to hold the repo rate unchanged at −0.50 per cent. If the economy develops as expected, there will soon be scope to slowly reduce the support from monetary policy. The forecast for the repo rate indicates that it will also be held unchanged at the monetary policy meeting in October and then raised by 0.25 percentage points either in December or February.