According to the Bank of Namibia's bulletin for the third quarter of 2006 released yesterday, the rate at which the central bank lends money to commercial bank now stands at nine per cent, the highest since December 2003, which was 7,75 per cent.

"Due the continued inflationary pressure, the Monetary Policy Management Committee of the Bank of Namibia increased the Bank rate by another 50 basis points to 8,50 per cent in October and by the same magnitude to 9,00 in December 2006," the bank said.

Despite the "good" performance of the economy particularly in some sectors - agriculture, construction and electricity and water was "poor.

In the quarter under review inflation accelerated to 5,3 per cent compared to 4,9 in the preceding quarter.

"The rate recorded during the third quarter is 3,0 percentage points higher than that of the corresponding quarter of 2005."

Also, Government debt had risen by 3 per cent during the second quarter of 2—6/07 from that recorded during the preceding quarter.

This, according to the Bank of Namibia, was spurred by the rise in domestic and foreign debt.

"As a percentage of GDP, total debt stock increased to 32 per cent during the quarter from 31,1 per cent during the preceding quarter."

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