DESPITE concerns coming out about the new omicron variant of covid19 and worldwide inflation, the Central Bank expressed a cautiously optimistic outlook for TT in its monetary policy report for November, issued on Friday.

It announced that the repo rate holds at 3.5 per cent - where it has been since 2020.

In the report, the Central Bank noted that inflation stood at 2.4 per cent in September and excess reserves averaged at about US$7.7 billion in October.

It added that natural gas production fell 22.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2021, as compared to the same period last year.

The report said the global economy went into recovery mode in the first half of the year, but that recovery has been uneven across countries. The US, China and Europe are now leading the charge in economic recovery. Global crude oil which suffered from uncertainty and volatility last year, managed to stay afloat between June and October 2021 because of an increased demand and a tightened supply over those months.

The omicron variant raised uncertainty in global markets, but despite volatility in the international financial markets, there was still a consensus that the global economy could have better resilience to new variants, especially with vaccinations being administered worldwide.

Low vaccination rates in the region, in the first half of the year, contributed to the contraction of economies, mostly because those rates slowed the reopening of the economies.

It is now hoped that with the gradual re-opening of the economy, the low energy and non-energy performances should see some support in the final months.

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