Tony Gregory
Ceist:47 Mr. Gregory asked the Minister for Finance the current level of real interest rates in every OECD country; and the number of OECD countries where the real interest rate exceeds this country's
Written Answers. - OECD Interest Rates.
I am informed by the Central Bank that, taking prime commercial lending rates as an example, the following are the most recently available real interest rates in the OECD countries listed below:
|
Prime commercial(a) lending rates |
Inflation(b)rate |
Inflation adjusted prime lending rate |
|
|
United States |
8.50 |
5.0 |
3.33 |
|
United Kingdom |
12.50 |
5.8 |
6.33 |
|
Germany |
10.68 |
3.5 |
6.94 |
|
Japan |
7.88 |
3.4 |
4.33 |
|
France |
10.25 |
3.2 |
6.83 |
|
Netherlands |
10.50 |
3.2 |
7.07 |
|
Belgium |
12.75 |
3.2 |
9.25 |
|
Denmark |
15.63 |
2.5 |
12.81 |
|
Italy |
13.38 |
6.8 |
6.16 |
|
Ireland |
10.75 |
3.1 |
7.42 |
|
Greece |
29.50 |
18.4 |
9.38 |
|
Portugal |
22.97 |
11.8 |
9.99 |
|
Spain |
14.00 |
5.9 |
7.65 |
|
Canada |
10.00 |
6.2 |
3.58 |
Notes:
(a) All data are end-May 1991 or later, except for Germany, Japan, France, Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Canada (end-April) and Greece (end-March).
(b) Percentage change in consumer prices over the year to end-May 1991, except for Portugal and Spain (end-April) and Germany (end-June).
There are five countries listed above which have real prime rates higher than those in Ireland, and Irish rates are not far out of line with rates in a number of others.
The Central Bank do not maintain or have ready access to comparable data for those OECD countries which are not listed above.
It should be noted that considerable caution is required in regard to the interpretation of real interest rates since, in particular, they are calculated on the basis of inflation rates in some period in the recent past, whereas market participants' interest rate decisions will be based on expected future inflation rates.